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

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

For my own part, I would rather excel in knowledge of the highest secrets of philosophy than in arms.

Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it.

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.

My friends ask me if I want more kids, and I always say yes, I want more; it’s the best thing you can have in your life.

Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.

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

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor e’er shall be.

Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

‚Evil men have no songs.‘ How is it that the Russians have songs?

You get one life. I’m going to embrace mine.

Base souls have no faith in great individuals.

When it’s your time, it is your time.

We conceal it from ourselves in vain – we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the feeling is secretly to be found, and man cannot possibly live for a moment without it.

I work very hard, and I play very hard. I’m grateful for life. And I live it – I believe life loves the liver of it. I live it.

The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.

Life tends to be an accumulation of a lot of mundane decisions, which often gets ignored.

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.

A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

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

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.

And die of nothing but a rage to live.

If you think only of evil, then you become pessimistic and hopeless like Freud. But if you think there is no evil, then you’re just one more deluded Pollyanna.

A man is but the product of his thoughts, what he thinks he becomes.

Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.

Truths and roses have thorns about them.

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

Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.

We all want to win more, but it’s all about being blessed and embracing your blessings. We have life.

There’s hope for everyone. That’s what makes the world go round.

Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.

There is in general good reason to suppose that in several respects the gods could all benefit from instruction by us human beings. We humans are – more humane.

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

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

Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.

He who doesn’t pray to the Lord prays to the devil.

Life is a constant oscillation between the sharp horns of dilemmas.

I always entertain great hopes.

Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.

Had I pursued my education long enough to learn all the conventional dos and don’ts of starting a business, I often wonder how different my life and career might have been.

Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone.

If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.

He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.

For time is the longest distance between two places.

It may be, it just may be, that life as we know it with its humanity is more unique than many have thought.

There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.

What I’m asking for is hard. It’s easier to be cynical; to accept that change isn’t possible, and politics is hopeless, and to believe that our voices and actions don’t matter. But if we give up now, then we forsake a better future.

It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.

There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is.

Nothing cannot exist forever.

Premature certainty is the enemy of the truth.

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.