I can cure the gout or stone in some, sooner than Divinity, Pride, or Avarice in others.

None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.

A process which led from the amœba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress - though whether the amœba would agree with this opinion is not known.

It is indifferent to me where I am to begin, for there shall I return again.

It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.

One must love humanity in order to reach out into the unique essence of each individual: no one can be too low or too ugly.

The one intelligible theory of the universe is that of objective idealism, that matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws. But before this can be accepted it must show itself capable of explaining the tridimensionality of space, the laws of motion, and the general characteristics of the universe, with mathematical clearness and precision ; for no less should be demanded of every Philosophy.

If I negate powdered wigs, I am still left with unpowdered wigs.

Every interpretation is hypothetical, for it is a mere attempt to read an unfamiliar text. An obscure dream, taken by itself, can rarely be interpreted with any certainty, so that I attach little importance to the interpretation of single dreams. With a series of dreams we can have more confidence in our interpretations, for the later dreams correct the mistakes we have made m handling those that went before. We are also better able, in a dream series, to recognize the important contents and basic themes.

What every man who loves his country hopes for in his inmost heart: the suppression of half his compatriots.

You, Socrates, began by saying that virtue can't be taught, and now you are insisting on the opposite, trying to show that all things are knowledge, justice, soundness of mind, even courage, from which it would follow that virtue most certainly can be taught.

The literate man is a sucker for propaganda...You cannot propagandize a native. You can sell him rum and trinkets, but you cannot sell him ideas.

Do not wonder, if the common people speak more truly than those of high rank; for they speak with more safety.

Artistic creation is a demand for unity and a rejection of the world.

Make sure that your religion is a matter between you and God only.

The notion of nothingness is not characteristic of laboring humanity: those who toil have neither time nor inclination to weigh their dust; they resign themselves to the difficulties or the doltishness of fate; they hope: hope is a slave's virtue.

Leaving virtue without proper cultivation; not thoroughly discussing what is learned; not being able to move towards righteousness of which a knowledge is gained; and not being able to change what is not good: these are the things which occasion me solicitude.

"It is necessary to be given the prop that all elementary props are given." This is not necessary because it is even impossible. There is no such prop! That all elementary props are given is SHOWN by there being none having an elementary sense which is not given.

The skepticism which fails to contribute to the ruin of our health is merely an intellectual exercise.

Eat not the heart.

Conquered Greece took captive her savage conqueror and brought her arts into rustic Latium.

If we tried to rely entirely on reason, and pressed it hard, our lives and beliefs would collapse - a form of madness that may actually occur if the inertial force of taking the world and life for granted is somehow lost. If we lose our grip on that, reason will not give it back to us.

There are three lines of life which stand out prominently to view: the life of pleasure, the political life, and the life of reflection.

There is always someone above you: beyond God Himself rises Nothingness.

The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.

Though I certainly deserve no ill treatment from mortals, yet if the insults and repulses I receive were attended with any advantage to them, I would content myself with lamenting in silence my own unmerited indignities and man's injustice.

Follow your desire as long as you live and do not perform more than is ordered; do not lessen the time of following desire, for the wasting of time is an abomination to the spirit... When riches are gained, follow desire, for riches will not profit if one is sluggish.

Revolution is like Saturn, it devours its own children.

Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend.

Since he is unable to be the beloved, he will become the lover.

It is often said, mainly by the 'no-contests', that although there is no positive evidence for the existence of God, nor is there evidence against his existence. So it is best to keep an open mind and be agnostic. At first sight that seems an unassailable position, at least in the weak sense of Pascal's wager. But on second thoughts it seems a cop-out, because the same could be said of Father Christmas and tooth fairies. There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?

Your own philosophy condemns you and supports us.

Poetry is one of the destinies of speech.... One would say that the poetic image, in its newness, opens a future to language.

Every presentation of philosophy, whether oral or written, is to be taken and can only be taken in the sense of a means. Every system is only an expression or image of reason, and hence only an object of reason, an object which reason-a living power that procreates itself in new thinking beings-distinguishes from itself and posits as an object of criticism. Every system that is not recognized and appropriated as just a means, limits and warps the mind for it sets up the indirect and formal thought in the place of the direct, original and material thought.

Society creates the victims that it afterwards vainly attempts to get rid of.

The true wisdom is to be always seasonable, and to change with a good grace in changing circumstances. To love playthings well as a child, to lead an adventurous and honourable youth, and to settle when the time arrives, into a green and smiling age, is to be a good artist in life and deserve well of yourself and your neighbour.

Even atheists rebel and express, like Hardy and Housman, their rage against God although (or because) He does not, on their view, exist...

No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a whole.

Drunkenness is temporary suicide.

Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?

So clearly will truths kindle light for truths.

Whenever a system of communication evolves, there is always the danger that some will exploit the system for their own ends.

The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.

As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity. Variant translation: When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.

I am displeased with everything. If they made me God, I would immediately resign.

It must be borne in mind that it is through the channel of the child that the development of the mature man must go, and that the present ideas of the educating or training of the latter in the school and the family - even the family of the liberal or radical - are such as to stifle the natural growth of the child. Every institution of our day, the family, the State, our moral codes, sees in every strong, beautiful, uncompromising personality a deadly enemy; therefore every effort is being made to cramp human emotion and originality of thought in the individual into a straight-jacket from its earliest infancy; or to shape every human being according to one pattern; not into a well-rounded individuality, but into a patient work slave, professional automaton, tax-paying citizen, or righteous moralist.

Let's not be dazzled by the sententious glitter with which error and lying often cover themselves. Society is not created by the crowd, and bodies come together in vain when hearts reject each other. The truly sociable man is more difficult in his relationships than others; those which consist only in false appearances cannot suit him. He prefers to live far from wicked men without thinking about them, than to see them and hate them. He prefers to flee his enemy rather than seek him out to harm him. A person who knows no other society than that of the heart will not seek his society in your circles. That is How J.J. must have thought and behaved before the conspiracy of which he is the object.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

Our Traders in Men (an unnatural commodity!) must know the wickedness of that Slave-Trade, if they attend to reasoning, or the dictates of their own hearts; and such as shun and stiffle all these, wilfully sacrifice Conscience, and the character of integrity to that golden Idol.

Berdyaev has been categorized as a Christian existentialist and a mystical philosopher. He never avoided the label of "mystic" since he felt it was the mystics of the world who came closest to understanding the role of spirit. Many of the philosophers he quoted were mystics - Meister Eckhart, Angelus Silesius and especially Jacob Boehme. The influence of Dostoevsky was central to his thought. Nevertheless, Berdyaev is not a naively irrational thinker; he brings an enormous fund of philosophical knowledge combined with the profundity of his own thought to support his view of existence. There are no dogmas in his writings to offend one's intellectual conscience.