There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view.

Nothing can be divided into more parts than it can possibly be constituted of. But matter (i.e. finite) cannot be constituted of infinite parts.

We are never further from what we wish than when we believe that we have what we wished for.

Some people never go crazy, What truly horrible lives they must live.

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

How can one take delight in the world unless one flees to it for refuge?

Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness… and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes… and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

People see things differently and remember things differently. It’s why if somebody robs a liquor store and there are four witnesses they’ll often disagree.

By indignities men come to dignities.

I wouldn’t say that anyone in fashion is on my side. I don’t think there’s anyone on my side.

The fellow that can only see a week ahead is always the popular fellow, for he is looking with the crowd. But the one that can see years ahead, he has a telescope but he can’t make anybody believe that he has it.

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls.

Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.

If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.

It is the quality of the moment, not the number of days, or events, or of actors, that imports.

The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years.

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

Our experience of any painting is always the latest line in a long conversation we’ve been having with painting. There’s no way of looking at art as though you hadn’t seen art before.

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.

Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.

What really raises one’s indignation against suffering is not suffering intrinsically, but the senselessness of suffering.

I try to look on all the great things God’s done, and not focus on the negative. It’s a perspective.

To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.

The sage does not hoard. The more he helps others, the more he benefits himself, The more he gives to others, the more he gets himself. The Way of Heaven does one good but never does one harm. The Way of the sage is to act but not to compete.

When one does away with oneself one does the most estimable thing possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.

Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation?

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.

I have spent many years of my life in opposition, and I rather like the role.

Sorry, I’m still a dialectical materialist.

The progress of India is the destiny of one-sixth of humanity. And it will also mean a world more confident of its prosperity and more secure about its future.

There are definitely people who disagree with certain creative decisions you make. Pleasing everyone is pretty hard.

Man is, properly speaking, based upon hope, he has no other possession but hope; this world of his is emphatically the place of hope.

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.

Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know.

Oh, yes; you Virginians shed barrels of perspiration while standing off at a distance and superintending the work your slaves do for you. It is different with us. Here it is every fellow for himself, or he doesn’t get there.

As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.

I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.

If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.

Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?

A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known.

We moralize among ruins.

I like being able to be on the inside of music, rather than on the outside listening to it.

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

I don’t pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

Society therefore is as ancient as the world.

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.

No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned… a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.

My theory is 98 percent of all human endeavor is killing time.

Everything is funny, as long as it’s happening to somebody else.

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make.

You will always have partial points of view, and you’ll always have the story behind the story that hasn’t come out yet. And any form of journalism you’re involved with is going to be up against a biased viewpoint and partial knowledge.

Do everything as in the eye of another.

In my entire life, any time I’ve ever lost something, I’ve gotten something even better going around the next corner. It’s like one door closes and another door opens. As long as I can walk through the produce section in every grocery store in this country and eat the grapes that they’re going to throw away, I know I can be fine.