Obstinacy in a bad cause, is but constancy in a good.

I have no knowledge of myself as I am, but merely as I appear to myself.

If he is not Nature herself, he is certainly the nature of Nature, and is the soul of the Soul of the world, if he is not the soul herself.

If a workman can conveniently spare those three halfpence, he buys a pot of porter. If he cannot, he contents himself with a pint, and, as a penny saved is a penny got, he thus gains a farthing by his temperance.

Show that you know this only, how you may never either fail to get what you desire or fall into what you avoid.

There are also Idols formed by the intercourse and association of men with each other, which I call Idols of the Market Place, on account of the commerce and consort of men there. For it is by discourse that men associate, and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations wherewith in some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies.

All things are the same,-familiar in enterprise, momentary in endurance, coarse in substance. All things now are as they were in the day of those whom we have buried.

Evangelical atheists preach the need for a scientific view of things, but a settled view does not go with scientific method. If we know anything it is that most of the theories that prevail at any one time are false. Scientific theories are not components of a world-view but tools we use to tinker with the world.

If the early Chinese people had any chivalry, it was manifested not toward women and children, but toward old people. That feeling of chivalry found clear expression in Mencius in some such saying as, "The people with gray hair should not be seen carrying burdens on the street," which was expressed as the final goal of good government.

An international socialism is the stated ideal of most socialists; an international liberalism is the unstated tendency of the liberal. To neither system is it thinkable that men live, not by universal aspirations but by local attachments; not by a "solidarity" that stretches across the globe from end to end, but by obligations that are understood in terms which separate men from most of their fellows-in terms such as national history, religion, language, and the customs that provide the basis of legitimacy.

Science is a systematic method for studying and working out those generalizations that seem to describe the behavior of the universe. It could exist as a purely intellectual game that would never affect the practical life of human beings either for good or evil, and that was very nearly the case in ancient Greece, for instance. Technology is the application of scientific findings to the tools of everyday life, and that application can be wise or unwise, useful or harmful. Very often, those who govern technological decisions are not scientists and know little about science.

I do not believe that I am now dreaming, but I cannot prove that I am not. I am, however, quite certain that I am having certain experiences, whether they be those of a dream or those of waking life.

If there was a God of sorrow, he would grow black heavy wings, to soar not for the skies, but for inferno.

But he has no fear; unconquered he looks down from a lofty height upon his sufferings.

When a man is taken in a mystical sense, his qualities are often signified by his actions, and by the circumstances of things about him. So a Ruler is signified by his riding on a beast; a Warrior and Conqueror, by his having a sword and bow; a potent man, by his gigantic stature; a Judge, by weights and measures... the affliction or persecution which a people suffers in laboring to bring forth a new kingdom, by the pain of a woman in labor to bring forth a man-child; the dissolution of a body politic or ecclesiastic, by the death of a man or beast; and the revival of a dissolved dominion, by the resurrection of the dead.

Nothing is more impressive than the fact that as mathematics withdrew increasingly into the upper regions of ever greater extremes of abstract thought, it returned back to earth with a corresponding growth of importance for the analysis of concrete fact. ...The paradox is now fully established that the utmost abstractions are the true weapons with which to control our thought of concrete fact.

The equation of religion with belief is rather recent.

It is the simple hypotheses of which one must be most wary; because these are the ones that have the most chances of passing unnoticed.

It is important to remember that the viciousness and wrongs of life stick out very plainly but that even at the worst times there is a great deal of goodness, kindness, and day-to-day decency that goes unnoticed and makes no headlines.

A clash of doctrines is not a disaster - it is an opportunity.

The source of an emotion is very difficult to grasp, but it comes to just that. That holds for all phenomena, for faith, etc. Why did it begin, how did it develop? and so forth-only he who has the gift of divination can perceive where it really comes from. But it is not accessible to reflection.

Pure justice emerges from symmetry applied human life, and human beings as ends in themselves.

Friend!-Will the ballot-box raise the Noblest to the chief place; does any sane man deliberately believe such a thing?

Money appears as measure (in Homer, e.g. oxen) earlier than as medium of exchange,because in barter each commodity is still its own medium of exchange. But it cannot be its own or its own standard of comparison.

School children and students who love God should never say: "For my part I like mathematics"; "I like French"; "I like Greek." They should learn to like all these subjects, because all of them develop that faculty of attention which, directed toward God, is the very substance of prayer.

I squander untold effort making an arrangement of my thoughts that may have no value whatever.

Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.

We are firmly convinced that the most imperfect republic is a thousand times better than the most enlightened monarchy. In a republic, there are at least brief periods when the people, while continually exploited, is not oppressed; in the monarchies, oppression is constant. The democratic regime also lifts the masses up gradually to participation in public life--something the monarchy never does. Nevertheless, while we prefer the republic, we must recognise and proclaim that whatever the form of government may be, so long as human society continues to be divided into different classes as a result of the hereditary inequality of occupations, of wealth, of education, and of rights, there will always be a class-restricted government and the inevitable exploitation of the majorities by the minorities. The State is nothing but this domination and this exploitation, well regulated and systematised.

Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.

Whatever you do, He will make good of it. But not the good He had prepared for you if you had obeyed him.

The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

All this world, all this rich, endless flow of appearances is not a deception, a multicolored phantasmagoria of our mirroring mind. Nor is it absolute reality which lives and evolves freely, independent of our mind's power. It is not the resplendent robe which arrays the mystic body of God. Nor the obscurely translucent partition between man and mystery. All this world that we see, hear, and touch is that accessible to the human senses, a condensation of the two enormous powers of the Universe permeated with all of God.

Let us now consider whether justice requires the toleration of the intolerant, and if so under what conditions. There are a variety of situations in which this question arises. Some political parties in democratic states hold doctrines that commit them to suppress the constitutional liberties whenever they have the power. Again, there are those who reject intellectual freedom but who nevertheless hold positions in the university. It may appear that toleration in these cases is inconsistent with the principles of justice, or at any rate not required by them.

The range of socially permissible and desirable satisfaction is greatly enlarged, but through this satisfaction, the Pleasure Principle is reduced-deprived of the claims which are irreconcilable with the established society. Pleasure, thus adjusted, generates submission.

Do not be guilty of possessing a library of learned books while lacking learning yourself.

A gifted humanity can only produce skeptics, never saints.

The only possible solution which will preserve Germany's honor and Germany's interest is, we repeat, a war with Russia.

I would say that teleology is theology, and that God is not a "because," but rather an "in order to."

Anytime two human beings find genuine pleasure, joy, and love, the stars smile and the universe is enriched. Yet as long as that pleasure, joy, and love is still predicated on myths of black sexuality, the more fundamental challenge of humane interaction remains unmet.

The free expression of the hopes and aspirations of a people is the greatest and only safety in a sane society.

All those events in history were such dramas as we see now, only with different actors.

The class of the wholly propertyless, who are obliged to sell their labor to the bourgeoisie in order to get, in exchange, the means of subsistence for their support. This is called the class of proletarians, or the proletariat.

I have lived and slept in the same bed with English countesses and Prussian farm women... no woman has excited passions among women more than I have.

Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose.

I am not advocating a morality based on evolution. I am saying how things have evolved. I am not saying how we humans morally ought to behave.

Though the coming of the day is still the most inspiriting, yet day's departure, also, and the return of night refresh, renew, and quiet us; and in the pastures of the dusk we stand, like cattle, exulting in the absence of the load.

Not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries. Each man is for ever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.

The Outsider cannot accept life as it is, who cannot consider his own existence or anyone else's necessary. He sees 'too deep and too much'. It is still a question of self-expression.

You have your brush, you have your colours, you paint paradise, then, in you go.