There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.

Justice will overtake fabricators of lies and false witnesses.

The finite is annihilated in the presence of the infinite, and becomes a pure nothing. So our spirit before God, so our justice before divine justice.

If a man had more than one life, I think a little hanging would not hurt this one; but after he is once dead, we cannot bring him back, no matter how sorry we may be; so the boy shall be pardoned.

If the law is upheld only by government officials, then all law is at an end.

An overflow of good converts to bad.

Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.

Religion is part of the human make-up. It’s also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.

The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is.

Men are never really willing to die except for the sake of freedom: therefore they do not believe in dying completely.

Doubt is the incentive to truth and inquiry leads the way.

Prime time for men is, say, 35 to 45. Then they level off and fall off.

I don’t suffer of anything that I’ve lost.

Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful.

If God dropped acid, would he see people?

Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.

We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.

The cause of my life has been to oppose superstition. It’s a battle you can’t hope to win – it’s a battle that’s going to go on forever. It’s part of the human condition.

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.

I strongly believe that for serious and violent criminals, we must absolutely hold them accountable for their crimes and send them to prison.

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.

The big divide in this country is not between Democrats and Republicans, or women and men, but between talkers and doers.

Never in any case say I have lost such a thing, but I have returned it. Is your child dead? It is a return. Is your wife dead? It is a return. Are you deprived of your estate? Is not this also a return?

The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Risk is a part of God’s game, alike for men and nations.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts.

America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children.

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.

Wishful thinking is not idealism. It is self-indulgence at best and self-exaltation at worst. In either case, it is usually at the expense of others. In other words, it is the opposite of idealism.

If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He exists.

The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.

The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosopher’s or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself, and that is why you must know yourself – Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self.

I think the first duty of society is justice.

At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.

By indignities men come to dignities.

Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.

I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.

The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.

What if nothing exists and we’re all in somebody’s dream?

The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.

The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.

Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.

I make preparations both to live and to die every day, but with the emphasis on not dying, and on acting as if I was going to carry on living.

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

My philosophy is: It’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me.

Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.

No school of philosophy has ever solved this question of whether being determines consciousness or the other way around. It may be a false antithesis.

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

Surely our job while we’re here on Earth is to learn about the world, not to create parallel universes.

Before the effect one believes in different causes than one does after the effect.

Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.