Rome is the Great Beast of atheism and materialism, adoring nothing but itself. Israel is the Great Beast of religion. Neither one nor the other is likable. The Great Beast is always repulsive.

A race preserves its vigour so long as it harbours a real contrast between what has been and what may be, and so long as it is nerved by the vigour to adventure beyond the safeties of the past. Without adventure, civilization is in full decay.

A screen bans reality.

Any physical object which by its influence deteriorates its environment, commits suicide.

That there is no such thing as what philosophers call material substance, I am seriously persuaded: but if I were made to see any thing absurd or skeptical in this, I should then have the same reason to renounce this, that I imagine I have now to reject the contrary opinion.

I believe Buddhism to be a simplification of Hinduism and Islam to be a simplification of Xianity.

We cannot think first and act afterwards. From the moment of birth we are immersed in action, and can only fitfully guide it by taking thought.

The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn. 

The universe is composed of matter, and, as a system, is sustained by motion. Motion is not a property of matter, and without this motion the solar system could not exist. Were motion a property of matter, that undiscovered and undiscoverable thing, called perpetual motion, would establish itself. It is because motion is not a property of matter, that perpetual motion is an impossibility in the hand of every being, but that of the Creator of motion. When the pretenders to Atheism can produce perpetual motion, and not till then, they may expect to be credited.

Christianity has functioned for the normative self-understanding of modernity as more than a mere precursor or a catalyst. Egalitarian universalism, from which sprang the ideas of freedom and social solidarity, of an antonomous conduct of life and emancipation, of the individual morality of conscience, human rights, and democracy, is the direct heir to the judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of continual critical appropriation and reinterpretation. To this day, there is no alternative to it. And in the light of the current challenges of a postnational constellation, we continue to draw on the substance of this heritage. Everything else is just idle postmodern talk.

At times the world sees straight, but many times the world goes astray.

Coleridge said that every work of art must have about it something not understood to obtain its full effect.

Why, then, do we wonder any longer that, although in material things we are thoroughly experienced, nevertheless in our actions we are dejected, unseemly, worthless, cowardly, unwilling to stand the strain, utter failures one and all? .

It is love that leniently and mercifully says: I forgive you everything-if you are forgiven only little, then it is because you love only little. Justice severely sets the boundary and says: No further! This is the limit. For you there is no forgiveness, and there is nothing more to be said.

The mind advances only when it has the patience to go in circles, in other words, to deepen.

There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys; they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked out the sum for themselves.

A man who is free is like a mangy sheep in a herd. He will contaminate my entire kingdom and ruin my work.

Art is naturally concerned with man in his existential aspect, not in his scientific aspect. For the scientist, questions about man's stature and significance, suffering and power, are not really scientific questions; consequently he is inclined to regard art as an inferior recreation. Unfortunately, the artist has come to accept the scientist's view of himself. The result, I contend, is that art in the twentieth century - literary art in particular - has ceased to take itself seriously as the primary instrument of existential philosophy. It has ceased to regard itself as an instrument for probing questions of human significance. Art is the science of human destiny. Science is the attempt to discern the order that underlies the chaos of nature; art is the attempt to discern the order that underlies the chaos of man. At its best, it evokes unifying emotions; it makes the reader see the world momentarily as a unity.

When the end comes, you will be esteemed by the world and rewarded by God, not because you have won the love and respect of the princes of the earth, however powerful, but rather for having loved, defended and cherished one such as I ... what you receive from others is a testimony to their virtue; but all that you do for others is the sign and clear indication of your own.

The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.

Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you.

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language.

Logical analysis applied to mental phenomenon shows that there is but one law of mind, namely that ideas tend to spread continuously and to affect certain others which stand to them in a peculiar relation of affectibility. In this spreading they lose intensity, and especially the power of affecting others, but gain generality and become welded with other ideas.

The friendship of one wise man is better than the friendship of a host of fools.

In order to make himself thoroughly undesirable, he will speak.

Heaven and Hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad; but the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue. -- Were one to go round the world with an intention of giving a good supper to the righteous, and a sound drubbing to the wicked, he would frequently be embarrassed in his choice, and would find that the merits and the demerits of most men and women scarcely amount to the value of either.

When we desire to confine our words, we commonly say they are spoken under the rose.

Irony limits, finitizes, and circumscribes and thereby yields truth, actuality, content; it disciplines and punishes and thereby yields balance and consistency.

How good would it be if one could die by throwing oneself into an infinite void.

Assist a man in raising a burden; but do not assist him in laying it down.

The book written against fame and learning has the author's name on the title-page.

For Appetite with an opinion of attaining, is called HOPE.

The attempt to separate everything from everything else is not only not in good taste but also shows that a man is utterly uncultivated and unphilosophical. The complete separation of each thing from all is the utterly final obliteration of all discourse. For our power of discourse is derived from the interweaving of the classes or ideas with one another.

In contrast to "Blessed are they who do not see and still believe," he speaks of "seeing and still not believing."

To love is to be delighted by the happiness of someone, or to experience pleasure upon the happiness of another. I define this as true love.

This world is empty to him alone who does not understand how to direct his libido towards objects, and to render them alive and beautiful for himself, for Beauty does not indeed lie in things, but in the feeling that we give to them.

In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.

In the old dramas it was love that had to be sacrificed to painful duty. In the modern instance the sacrifice is at the shrine of what William James called "the Bitch Goddess, Success." Love is to be abandoned for the stern pursuit of newspaper notoriety and dollars.

Essentially the fault lies in the fact that the democratic political process is at best regulated rivalry; it does not even in theory have the desirable properties that price theory ascribes to truly competitive markets.

Only the feeble resign themselves to final death and substitute some other desire for the longing for personal immortality. In the strong the zeal for perpetuity overrides the doubt of realizing it, and their superabundance of life overflows upon the other side of death.

It seems to me that the current political task in a society like ours is to criticize the working of institutions that are apparently the most neutral and independent, to criticize these institutions and attack them in such a way that the political violence that exercises itself obscurely through them becomes manifest, so that one can fight against them.

It is for the sake of order that I seduced Clytemnestra, for the sake of order that I killed my king. I wanted for order to rule and that it rule through me. I have lived without desire, without love, without hope: I made order. Oh! terrible and divine passion!

Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people who are their own masters if they are not submissive to the Deity?

There remains the final reflection, how shallow, puny, and imperfect are efforts to sound the depths in the nature of things. In philosophical discussion, the merest hint of dogmatic certainty as to finality of statement is an exhibition of folly.

After he routed Pharnaces Ponticus at the first assault, he wrote thus to his friends: "I came, I saw, I conquered."

The truth is sum, ergo cogito - I am, therefore I think, although not everything that is thinks. Is not consciousness of thinking above all consciousness of being? Is pure thought possible, without consciousness of self, without personality? Can there exist pure knowledge without feeling, without that species of materiality which feelings lends to it? Do we not perhaps feel thought, and do we not feel ourselves in the act of knowing and willing? Could not the man in the stove [Descartes] have said: "I feel, therefore I am"? or "I will, therefore I am"? And to feel oneself, is it not perhaps to feel oneself imperishable?

The For-itself, in fact, is nothing but the pure nihilation of the In-itself; it is like a hole of being at the heart of Being.

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.

The good King of France desires only that you would take his word and let him be quiet till he has got the West Indies into his hands and his grandson well established in Spain, and then you may be sure you shall be as safe as he will let you be in your religion, property and trade, to all which who can be such an infidel as not to believe him a great friend?

A propensity to hope and joy is real riches: One to fear and sorrow, real poverty.