The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker.

If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.

There are GMO skeptics more in Europe maybe than in other places, but not exclusively.

I do not pretend to start with precise questions. I do not think you can start with anything precise. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along.

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.

Many people are alive but don’t touch the miracle of being alive.

Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other: given the upper, to find the under side.

I have written too much history to have faith in it; and if anyone thinks I’m wrong, I am inclined to agree with him.

Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

There is no such thing as part freedom.

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?

I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.

I have never entered into any controversy in defense of my philosophical opinions; I leave them to take their chance in the world. If they are right, truth and experience will support them; if wrong, they ought to be refuted and rejected. Disputes are apt to sour one’s temper and disturb one’s quiet.

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.

When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it – this is knowledge.

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

I imagine that yes is the only living thing.

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

Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.

I was never ignorant, as far as being experienced in classrooms and learning about different subjects and actually soaking it up, so I checked into college for a little bit. I took classes at a community college in West L.A. I took psychology, English, and philosophy.

It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.

Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.

Only the ideas that we really live have any value.

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

Death is one moment, and life is so many of them.

Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!

I don’t see myself as a philosopher. That’s awfully boring.

Any man is liable to err, only a fool persists in error.

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.

It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.

I have an existential map. It has ‚You are here‘ written all over it.

Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die.

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

God may exist, but science can explain the universe without the need for a creator.

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that’s how we’ve got to live.

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn’t wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

I’m an idealist without illusions.

Are creeds such simple things like the clothes which a man can change at will and put on at will? Creeds are such for which people live for ages and ages.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Fear is the mother of morality.

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

Law is mind without reason.

It is the eye of other people that ruin us. If I were blind I would want, neither fine clothes, fine houses or fine furniture.

Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.

The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.

Religion is the frozen thought of man out of which they build temples.

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

Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

Yeah, it’s pretty hard not to be completely cynical these days.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

We do not know what is really good or bad fortune.

The deed is everything, the glory is naught.

I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

Whatever must happen ultimately should happen immediately.

He that does good to another does good also to himself.