They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice… that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.

Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.

To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to recieve all the great truths which atheism would deny.

Thought is the wind and knowledge the sail.

Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.

A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice.

There is no birth of consciousness without pain.

If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on which the continuation of all life in the world depended, would dry up at once.

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life – knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.

I believe in the Golden Rule – The Man with the Gold… Rules.

I do think there must be some kind of interaction between your living life and the life that goes on from here.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

Everything can change at any moment, suddenly and forever.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.

It’s been proven by quite a few studies that plants are good for our psychological development. If you green an area, the rate of crime goes down. Torture victims begin to recover when they spend time outside in a garden with flowers. So we need them, in some deep psychological sense, which I don’t suppose anybody really understands yet.

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

The book, ’12 Rules For Life,‘ is a very serious book. There’s elements of humor in it, but I’m trying to struggle with things at the deepest possible level and to explain to people why it’s necessary to live a upstanding and noble and moral and truthful and responsible life, and why there’s hell to pay if you don’t do that.

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.

We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy.

The existentialist says at once that man is anguish.

We want to do a lot of stuff; we’re not in great shape. We didn’t get a good night’s sleep. We’re a little depressed. Coffee solves all these problems in one delightful little cup.

If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.

Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.

We have an epidemic of insecure people in our society today.

All men are equal before fish.

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.

To do a great right do a little wrong.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

The philosophical question before us is, when we make an observation of our track in the past, does the result of our observation become real in the same sense that the final state would be defined if an outside observer were to make the observation?

A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will’s freedom after it.

The spirit of an age may be best expressed in the abstract ideal arts, for the spirit itself is abstract and ideal.

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.

The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.

It is as necessary for man to live in beauty rather than ugliness as it is necessary for him to have food for an aching belly or rest for a weary body.

Paranoia is just another word for ignorance.

Not only is there but one way of doing things rightly, but there is only one way of seeing them, and that is, seeing the whole of them.

In so far as the mind is stronger than the body, so are the ills contracted by the mind more severe than those contracted by the body.

You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.

There are going to be good days and bad days. Bottom line.

Well, the future for me is already a thing of the past.

I am not some goddess that dropped down from the sky to sing pop music; I am not some extra-incredible human person that needs to be told how wonderful they are all day and kissed.

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

Become slower in your journey through life. Practice yoga and meditation if you suffer from ‚hurry sickness.‘ Become more introspective by visiting quiet places such as churches, museums, mountains and lakes. Give yourself permission to read at least one novel a month for pleasure.

Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being.

The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.

Hatred is self-punishment.

Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.

For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.

I know now that there is no one thing that is true – it is all true.

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?

The only difference between the sane and the insane is that the sane have the power to lock up the insane.