When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.

The die is cast.

He who looks the higher is the more highly distinguished, and turning over the great book of nature (which is the proper object of philosophy) is the way to elevate one’s gaze.

When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.

What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.

One always dies too soon or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life.

The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences.

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

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

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.

The gods too are fond of a joke.

But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?

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.

What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature are shot down wholesale.

We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said to be.

Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.

Those whom the gods love grow young.

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

You’re born. You suffer. You die. Fortunately, there’s a loophole.

The end of man is action, and not thought, though it be of the noblest.

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.

God answers prayers, but he doesn’t always answer it your way.

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

Error is always more busy than truth.

When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.

I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think.

There is no such thing as part freedom.

Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences.

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

The universe as we know it is a joint product of the observer and the observed.

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

Whatever must happen ultimately should happen immediately.

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

Life is the childhood of our immortality.

To eat is to appropriate by destruction.

Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.

The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.

Existence precedes and rules essence.

Such is the feebleness of humanity, such is its perversity, that doubtless it is better for it to be subject to all possible superstitions, as long as they are not murderous, than to live without religion.

I want to do a certain thing in the world, and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.

Whatever fortune has raised to a height, she has raised only to cast it down.

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

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

I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened.

It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world.

I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine.

Fate pulls you in different directions.

‚Tis better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.

We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork, you must make a decision.

We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.

It’s really easy to have a nice philosophy about openness, but moving the world in that direction is a different thing. It requires both understanding where you want to go and being pragmatic about getting there.

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

Man has throughout the ages been seeking something beyond himself, beyond material welfare – something we call truth or God or reality, a timeless state – something that cannot be disturbed by circumstances, by thought or by human corruption.

I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.

He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science. Particularly physics.

And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul.

And yet it moves.

My philosophy in life is, Decide what you want to do. You have to have something to hope for.

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.