We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.

Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.

The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.

Religion is the opium of the masses.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.

All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain.

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude.

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

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

It is impossible to experience one’s death objectively and still carry a tune.

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

The great quest of life has always been to discover truth.

All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.

To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

It is better to die than to preserve this life by incurring disgrace. The loss of life causes but a moment’s grief, but disgrace brings grief every day of one’s life.

If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains.

So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?

Every man is his own hell.

Existence precedes and rules essence.

I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy.

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.

We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.

It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren’t doing.

Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the ‚Not Me,‘ that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, ‚Nature.‘

Against eternal injustice, man must assert justice, and to protest against the universe of grief, he must create happiness.

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?

There was something undifferentiated and yet complete, which existed before Heaven and Earth. Soundless and formless, it depends on nothing and does not change. It operates everywhere and is free from danger. It may be considered the mother of the universe. I do not know its name; I call it Tao.

A God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but fate and nature.

We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy.

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

In a way, the whole tangible universe itself is a vast residue, a skeleton of countless lives that have germinated in it and have left it, leaving behind them only a trifling, infinitesimal part of their riches.

The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

I am a part of everything that I have read.

A sense is what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter, in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress of a signet-ring without the iron or gold.

I believe alien life is quite common in the universe, although intelligent life is less so. Some say it has yet to appear on planet Earth.

There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.

It’s time for the human race to enter the solar system.

It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.

Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one’s never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them.

One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people’s minds.

Use, do not abuse… neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down. Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.

There is a fundamental question we all have to face. How are we to live our lives; by what principles and moral values will we be guided and inspired?

We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.

The ‚I think‘ which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the ‚I breathe‘ which actually does accompany them.

Mystical explanations are thought to be deep; the truth is that they are not even shallow.

Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.

I think the discovery of supersymmetric partners for the known particles would revolutionize our understanding of the universe.

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.

The impossible often has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks.

It’s possible – you can never know – that the universe exists only for me. If so, it’s sure going well for me, I must admit.