The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects.

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.

Nothing can have value without being an object of utility.

What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.

There is nothing besides a spiritual world; what we call the world of the senses is the Evil in the spiritual world, and what we call Evil is only the necessity of a moment in our eternal evolution.

A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.

Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.

Those whom the gods love grow young.

If we don’t know life, how can we know death?

May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law.

A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.

Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.

There is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect.

Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it.

Chaos is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence.

We should not say that one man’s hour is worth another man’s hour, but rather that one man during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing: he is at the most time’s carcass.

Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.

We are wiser than we know.

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

Ignorant people see life as either existence or non-existence, but wise men see it beyond both existence and non-existence to something that transcends them both; this is an observation of the Middle Way.

Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful.

Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time.

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

People really had a problem with my disinterest in submission. They had a problem with my intellect, and they had a problem with my choice of lovers. They had a problem with my choice of everything.

All thought must, directly or indirectly, by way of certain characters, relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us.

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.

You’re dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway.

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.

He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees.

The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.

Some minds remain open long enough for the truth not only to enter but to pass on through by way of a ready exit without pausing anywhere along the route.

Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.

He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.

Clever men are good, but they are not the best.

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.

God does not play dice.

Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects… totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations.

The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.

The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.

Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain: and it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel.

Don’t throw stones at your neighbors if your own windows are glass.

Nature cannot be tricked or cheated. She will give up to you the object of your struggles only after you have paid her price.

Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form.

Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.

My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.

One Buddha is not enough; we need to have many Buddhas.

Assuming if there’s such a thing as reality, if you have a false relationship with it, how can you do anything but fail?

One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.