We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

One of the things I definitely think of as a driver of me is fear. And it’s fear of failure, fear of being overtaken.

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

There’s no political point worth my son’s life.

I am so tired of fear. And I don’t want my girls to live in a country, in a world, based on fear.

Whenever you do something, people try to re-do it and do a better version, especially if they’re in another country.

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

You cannot step into the same river twice.

I can’t very well be teaching one way and living my life another way. What I do in life must be consistent with the things I say. And the same goes for you.

Politics have no relation to morals.

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.

The truth is lived, not taught.

Both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom: the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come.

Yesterday’s weirdness is tomorrow’s reason why.

Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

True wealth is not of the pocket, but of the heart and of the mind.

Look at the world. There is no pure competitor to the United States of America.

More than anything else, I want the folks back at home to think right of me.

Morality is contraband in war.

There is, so I believe, in the essence of everything, something that we cannot call learning. There is, my friend, only a knowledge – that is everywhere.

The truth is, I have absolutely no professional credentials – literally, which is why I’m teaching at MIT.

Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.

If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?

When a nation is filled with strife, then do patriots flourish.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

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

The good is the beautiful.

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

Nothing can have value without being an object of utility.

We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

Having a child, that’s always been my biggest fear. I want a child and I fear a child.

A man should be upright, not be kept upright.

Those who do not know how to live must make a merit of dying.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Competition is a sin.

But if nothing but soul, or in soul mind, is qualified to count, it is impossible for there to be time unless there is soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, i.e. if change can exist without soul.

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

Compassion is the basis of morality.

Nature abhors annihilation.

Science is but an image of the truth.

Respect is one of life’s greatest treasures. I mean, what does it all add up to if you don’t have that?

Rule number one is: Beat your team-mate.

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

The statesman’s duty is to bridge the gap between his nation’s experience and his vision.

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

Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.

I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head. But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute.

All genuinely intellectual work is humorous.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

I think that at the start of a game, you’re always playing to win, and then maybe if you’re ahead late in the game, you start playing not to lose. The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win.

People are just afraid of things too much. Afraid of things that don’t necessarily merit fear.

I am a little too absorbed by science to be able to philosophise much; but the more I look into myself, the more I find myself possessed by the conviction that it is only the science of Christ running through all things, that is to say true mystical science, that really matters. I let myself get caught up in the game when I geologise.

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear – kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor – with the cry of grave national emergency.

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

One truth stands firm. All that happens in world history rests on something spiritual. If the spiritual is strong, it creates world history. If it is weak, it suffers world history.

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.