Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.

In the natural state no concept of God can arise, and the false one which one makes for himself is harmful. Hence the theory of natural religion can be true only where there is no science; therefore it cannot bind all men together.

I cannot think of any circumstances in which advertising would not be an evil.

The errors of the times of superstition and bigotry still hold some sway, and compel those who wish to preserve a regard to their respectability in society to an over strained demeanor; and this demeanor sometimes degenerates into hypocrisy, and is often the cause of great inconsistency. It is destructive of every open, honest, generous, and manly feeling. It disgusts many, and drives them to the opposite extreme. It is sometimes the cause of insanity. It is founded in ignorance. While erroneous customs prevail in any country, it would evince an ignorance of human nature in any individual to offend against them, until he has convinced the community of their error.

Pain is the opposite of strength, and so is anger.

Virtue is reason which has become energy.

Privilege is a regulation rendering a few men, and those only, by the accident of their birth, eligible to certain situations. It kills all liberal ambition in the rest of mankind, by opposing to it an apparently insurmountable bar. It diminishes it in the favored class itself, by showing them the principal qualification as indefeasibly theirs. Privilege entitles a favored few to engross to themselves gratifications which the system of the universe left at large to all her sons; it puts into the hands of those few the means of oppression against the rest of their species; it fill them witth vain-glory, and affords them every incitement to insolence and a lofty disregard to the feeling and interests of others.

A man discovers what he is actually worth in this world when he faces society as a man, without money, name, or powerful connections, stripped of all but his native potentialities. He soon finds that nothing has less weight than his human qualities. They are prized so low that the market does not even list them. Strict science, which acknowledges man only as a biological concept, reflects man's lot in the actual world; in himself, man is nothing more than a member of a species. In the eyes of the world, the quality of humanity confers no title to existence, nay, not even a right of sojourn. Such title must be certified by special social circumstances stipulated in documents to be presented on demand.

All those things at which thou wishest to arrive by a circuitous road, thou canst have now, if thou dost not refuse them to thyself.

Half our days we pass in the shadow of the earth; and the brother of death exacteth a third part of our lives.

Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.

Faith feels itself secure neither with universal consent, nor with tradition, nor with authority. It seeks support of its enemy, reason.

I think all the great religions of the world - Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Communism - both untrue and harmful. It is evident as a matter of logic that, since they disagree, not more than one of them can be true. With very few exception, the religions which a man accepts is that of the community in which he lives, which makes it obvious that the influence of environment is what has led him to accept the religion in question.

It depends on what we read, after all manner of Professors have done their best for us.

When you know quite absolutely that everything is unreal, you then cannot see why you should take the trouble to prove it.

Why is psychology the youngest of the empirical sciences? Why have we not long since discovered the unconscious and raised up its treasure-house of eternal images? Simply because we had a religious formula for everything psychic - and one that is far more beautiful and comprehensive than immediate experience. Though the Christian view of the world has paled for many people, the symbolic treasure-rooms of the East are still full of marvels that can nourish for a long time to come the passion for show and new clothes. What is more, these images - be they Christian or Buddhist or what you will - are lovely, mysterious, richly intuitive.

All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods.

From the same it proceedeth,that men gives different names, to one and the same thing, from the difference of their own passions: As they that approve a private opinion, call it Opinion; but they that mislike it, Haeresie: and yet haeresie signifies no more than private opinion; but has only agreater tincture of choler.

Man flows at once to God when the channel of purity is open.

Man, servant and interpreter of Nature, does and understands only as much as he has observed of the order of Nature, either in reality or in mind; he neither knows nor can do more.

Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.

Utopia is a mixture of childish rationalism and secularized angelism.

In fact, the old Marxist distinctions between productive and unproductive labor, as well as that between productive and reproductive labor, which were always dubious, should now be completely thrown out.

Truly, if the preservation of all mankind, as much as in him lies, were every one's persuasion, as indeed it is every one's duty, and the true principle to regulate our religion, politicks and morality by, the world would be much quieter, and better natur'd than it is.

Themistocles being asked whether he would rather be Achilles or Homer, said, "Which would you rather be,-a conqueror in the Olympic games, or the crier that proclaims who are conquerors?"

Every step closer to my soul excites the scornful laughter of my devils, those cowardly ear-whisperers and poison-mixers. It was easy for them to laugh, since I had to do strange things.

The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up. That is possible for him who never argues and strives with men and facts, but in all experience retires upon himself, and looks for the ultimate cause of things in himself.

A man is what he wills himself to be.

I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love.

Genes and culture have co-evolved. But crudely, natural selection "designed" male human primates to hunt nonhumans and build coalitions of other male human primates in order to wage territorial wars of aggression. Nature didn't design us to become a scientific community and collaborate to overcome aging. It's difficult to imagine that any human enemy could inflict such gruesome damage on the victims as growing old. The ravages of aging strike down combatants and civilians alike. So the trillions of dollars that humans currently spend on ways to harm and kill each other ("defence") would be more fruitfully spent on defeating our common enemy. We should work together to build a "Triple S" civilisation of superlongevity, superhappiness and superintelligence.

The human mind loves the bondage of words and is apt, when freed from one form of their tyranny, to set up another more oppressive than the last. The highest function of philosophy is to enforce the attitude of meditation and therewithal restrain the excessive volubility of the tongue. To us it seems that the reflective thinker wins his greatest victories when by what he says he compels us to recognise the relative insignificance of anything he can say. His task is not to capture Reality, but to free it from captivity.

The kingdom, its states, and its families, may be perfectly ruled; dignities and emoluments may be declined; naked weapons may be trampled under the feet; but the course of the Mean cannot be attained to.

A Turk thinks, or used to think (for even Turks are wiser now-a-days), that society would be on a sandbank if women were suffered to walk about the streets with their faces uncovered. Taught by these and many similar examples, I look upon this expression of loosening the foundations of society, unless a person tells in unambiguous terms what he means by it, as a mere bugbear to frighten imbeciles with.

The art of medicine has its roots in the heart. If your heart is false, then also the doctor in you is false. If it is fair, then also the doctor is fair.

It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man.

Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.

We need not suppose that when po+B40wer resides in an exclusive class, that class will knowingly and deliberately sacrifice the other classes to themselves: it suffices that, in the absence of its natural defenders, the interest of the excluded is always in danger of being overlooked: and, when looked at, is seen with very different eyes from those of the persons whom it directly concerns.

It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.

The pornographic body lacks any symbolism. The ritualized body, by contrast, is a splendid stage, with secrets and deities written into it.

The Fathers of the Church can well afford to preach the gospel of Christ. It contains nothing dangerous to the regime of authority and wealth; it stands for self-denial and self-abnegation, for penance and regret, and is absolutely inert in the face of every indignity, every outrage imposed upon mankind.

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

As a child, I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.

There is no chastisement that does not purify; there is no disorder that ETERNAL LOVE does not turn against the principle of evil.

It is not truth that makes man great, but man that makes truth great.

Whatever happens at all happens as it should; you will find this true, if you watch narrowly.