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

Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.

All of us are guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.

At the heart of the Irish economy has always been the philosophy of tax competitiveness. On the cranky left, that is very annoying; I can see that.

So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

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 that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

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.

Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that.

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

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 decided, very early on, just to accept life unconditionally; I never expected it to do anything special for me, yet I seemed to accomplish far more than I had ever hoped. Most of the time it just happened to me without my ever seeking it.

Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.

Why are we here? Where do we come from? Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead.

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.

He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.

Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering – because you can’t take it in all at once.

Millions of people die every day. Everyone’s got to go sometime.

There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.

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

Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.

Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.

Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.

Religion is the opium of the masses.

What do you want a meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist.

Life loves the liver of it.

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 blind-folded fear.

I have finally decided to write my book on the spiritual life. I mean to put down as simply as possible the sort of ascetical or mystical teaching that I have been living and preaching so long. I call it ‚Le Milieu Divin,‘ but I am being careful to include nothing esoteric and the minimum of explicit philosophy.

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.

Man was made at the end of the week’s work, when God was tired.

Base souls have no faith in great individuals.

Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it’s from Neptune.

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.

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.

Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party.

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.

This soul, or life within us, by no means agrees with the life outside us. If one has the courage to ask her what she thinks, she is always saying the very opposite to what other people say.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.

Nothing can come of nothing.

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

To be renewed is everything. What more could one ask for than to have one’s youth back again?

The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.

If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.

Singleness of purpose is one of the chief essentials for success in life, no matter what may be one’s aim.

Sin is geographical.

What’s the good of drawing in the next breath if all you do is let it out and draw in another?

To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist.

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.

That government is best which governs least.

I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.

Without music, life would be a mistake.

It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other.

Old age: the crown of life, our play’s last act.

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.

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