Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?

I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active – not more happy – nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.

Any man is liable to err, only a fool persists in error.

Note, besides, that it is no more immoral to directly rob citizens than to slip indirect taxes into the price of goods that they cannot do without.

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now – always.

For I can raise no money by vile means.

Out of 6 billion humans, the troublemakers are just a handful.

Integrity has no need of rules.

I have this feeling that the world is not in balance. And people are afraid, but we’re also starting to be really brave.

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars – mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?

Sincere words are not fine; fine words are not sincere.

There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view.

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

Good is positive. Evil is merely privative, not absolute: it is like cold, which is the privation of heat. All evil is so much death or nonentity. Benevolence is absolute and real. So much benevolence as a man hath, so much life hath he.

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.

Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.

Don’t despair, not even over the fact that you don’t despair.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

I am the son of a freedom fighter, and a son of a freedom fighter automatically imbibes the value of democracy.

I draw from the Absurd three consequences: my revolt, my liberty, my passion.

It’s that wonderful old-fashioned idea that others come first and you come second. This was the whole ethic by which I was brought up. Others matter more than you do, so ‚don’t fuss, dear; get on with it.‘

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.

Fear is the mother of morality.

I really believe in the philosophy that you create your own universe. I’m just trying to create a good one for myself.

Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.

Whether if soul did not exist time would exist or not, is a question that may fairly be asked; for if there cannot be someone to count there cannot be anything that can be counted, so that evidently there cannot be number; for number is either what has been, or what can be, counted.

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.

The dinosaurs aren’t remembered for much more than their bones. When humanity’s gone, what do we give to this little planet that we’re on, and what could we do collectively, removing the pride?

Like it or not, there are a lot of dance teachers in this country who respect me, whether they personally like me or not.

Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.

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

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides.

Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.

A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just.

We should not look down on our first ancestors.

My parents were the same in the pulpit as they were at home. I think that’s where a lot of preachers‘ kids get off base sometimes. Because they don’t see the same things at both places.

The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.

Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.

It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.

Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.

When I’m getting to know someone, I look for someone who has passions that I respect, like his career. Someone who loves what he does is really attractive.

I continue to care for President Obama and for his family. I think that in many ways they are very courageous people, and I honor that, because I know what it means to live as a black person in a racist America.

I’ve got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.

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

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law.

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

Assuming if there’s such a thing as reality, if you have a false relationship with it, how can you do anything but fail?

That old law about ‚an eye for an eye‘ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

Call it Nature, Fate, Fortune; all these are names of the one and selfsame God.

Simplicity is the most deceitful mistress that ever betrayed man.

To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.