There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn. If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning.

Since it is every man's interest to be happy through the whole of life, it is the wisdom of every one to employ philosophy in the search of felicity without delay; and there cannot be a greater folly, than to be always beginning to live.

Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes a-begging.

Science fiction offers its writers chances of embarrassment that no other form of fiction does.

Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. 4:19 (KJV) Said to Peter and Andrew

I make no doubt... that these rules are simple, artless, and natural.

[A]ll things as subsist from nature appear to contain in themselves a principle of motion and permanency; some according to place, others according to increase and diminuation; and others according to change in quality. Book II, Ch. I, p. 88.

One could construe the life of man as a great discourse in which the various people represent different parts of speech (the same might apply to states). How many people are just adjectives, interjections, conjunctions, adverbs? How few are substantives, active verbs, how many are copulas? Human relations are like the irregular verbs in a number of languages where nearly all verbs are irregular.

Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment. (John 7:24) (NASB) Variant translation: Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment. (NIV)

A nihilist is not one who believes in nothing, but one who does not believe in what exists.

Then are the children free. Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee. 17:26-27 (KJV)

Lying and guile need only to be revealed and recognized to be undone. When once lying is recognized as such, it needs no second stroke; it falls of itself and vanishes in shame.

Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? 20:22 (KJV)

I moreover affirm that our wisdom itself, and wisest consultations, for the most part commit themselves to the conduct of chance.

The Virgin Mary remains in the middle between Christ and humankind. For in the very moment he was conceived and lived, he was full of grace. All other human beings are without grace, both in the first and second conception. But the Virgin Mary, though without grace in the first conception, was full of grace in the second ... whereas other human beings are conceived in sin, in soul as well as in body, and Christ was conceived without sin in soul as well as in body, the Virgin Mary was conceived in body without grace but in soul full of grace.

Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature. Beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.

How many we know who have fled the sweetness of a tranquil life in their homes, among their friends, to seek the horror of uninhabitable deserts; who have flung themselves into humiliation, degradation, and the contempt of the world, and have enjoyed these and even sought them out.

To become sober is: to come to oneself in self-knowledge and before God as nothing before him, yet infinitely, unconditionally engaged.

I see again what I thought I saw the first time, when I sent forth the little book that was compared to and in fact could best be compared to a humble little flower under the cover of the great forest.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. 22:37-40 (KJV)

The hair is the finest ornament women have. . . . I like women to let their hair fall down their back, it is a most agreeable sight.

There is nothing I congratulate myself on more heartily than on never having joined a sect.

If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

It pertains to all men to know themselves and to learn self-control.

T is so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so. The strange lustre that surrounds him conceals and shrouds him from us; our sight is there broken and dissipated, being stopped and filled by the prevailing light.

For well-being and health, again, the homestead should be airy in summer, and sunny in winter. A homestead possessing these qualities would be longer than it is deep; and its main front would face the south.

Every revolutionary ends as an oppressor or a heretic.

This return of Republics back to their principles also results from the simple virtue of one man, without depending on any law that excites him to any execution: none the less, they are of such influence and example that good men desire to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life contrary to those examples.

The symptom is not only a cyphered message, it is at the same time a way for the subject to organize his enjoyment - that is why, even after the completed interpretation, the subject is not prepared to renounce his symptom.

A few rules include all that is necessary for the perfection of the definitions, the axioms, and the demonstrations, and consequently of the entire method of the geometrical proofs of the art of persuading.

There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.

A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house. 13:57 (KJV)

History is a story without an end.

I will first discuss images according to the Law of Moses, and then according to the gospel. And I say at the outset that according to the Law of Moses no other images are forbidden than an image of God which one worships. A crucifix, on the other hand, or any other holy image is not forbidden. Heigh now! you breakers of images, I defy you to prove the opposite!

There is a plague on Man, the opinion that he knows something.

How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech. Either/Or Part I, Swenson Translation p. 19 Variations include: People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought, which they avoid. People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

Courtiers don't take wagers against the king's skill.

When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they need friendship in addition.

The perfection of the effect demonstrates the perfection of the cause, for a greater power brings about a more perfect effect. But God is the most perfect agent. Therefore, things created by Him obtain perfection from Him. So, to detract from the perfection of creatures is to detract from the perfection of divine power.

Therefore let every Christian, yea, let the whole body of Christ everywhere cry out, despite the tribulations it endures, despite temptations and countless scandals, saying: "Preserve my soul, for I am holy; save Thy servant, O my God, that trusteth in thee" (Ps. 85:2) No, this holy one is not proud, for he trusts in God.

Man is certainly crazy. He could not make a mite, and he makes gods by the dozen.

Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved.

It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.

He who remembers the evils he has undergone, and those that have threatened him, and the slight causes that have changed him from one state to another, prepares himself in that way for future changes and for recognizing his condition. The life of Caesar has no more to show us than our own; an emperor's or an ordinary man's, it is still a life subject to all human accidents.

Earnest in practicing the ordinary virtues, and careful in speaking about them, if, in his practice, he has anything defective, the superior man dares not but exert himself; and if, in his words, he has any excess, he dares not allow himself such license. Thus his words have respect to his actions, and his actions have respect to his words; is it not just an entire sincerity which marks the superior man?

Out of special hatred for our faith, the devil has sent some whores here to destroy our poor young men . . . such a syphilitic whore can poison ten, twenty, thirty or more of the children of good people, and thus is to be considered a murderer, or worse, as a poisoner.

If man of himself could in a perfect manner know all things visible and invisible, it would indeed be foolish to believe what he does not see. But our manner of knowing is so weak that no philosopher could perfectly investigate the nature of even one little fly.

If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it.

For what is lacking now is not quibbles; nay, the books of the Stoics are full of quibbles.