There can be no brotherhood...

There can be no brotherhood when some nations indulge in previously unheard of luxuries, while others struggle to stave off famine.

Seemeth it nothing to you,...

Seemeth it nothing to you, never to accuse, never to blame either God or Man? to wear ever the same countenance in going forth as in coming in? This was the secret of Socrates: yet he never said that he knew or taught anything... Who amongst you makes this his aim? Were it indeed so, you would gladly endure sickness, hunger, aye, death itself.

Uncertainty is the refuge of...

Uncertainty is the refuge of hope.

The vicious circle of dread...

The vicious circle of dread of war which leads the nations to arm themselves for self-protection, with the result that bloated armaments ultimately lead to the war which they were intended to avert, can be broken in either of two conceivable ways. There might arise a unique world power, brought into being by the unification of all those now in possession of weapons, and equipped with the capacity to forbid the lesser and unarmed nations to make war. On the other hand, it may arise by the working of a fate to us still inscrutable which, out of ruin, will disclose a way towards the development of a new human being. To will the discovery of this way would be blind impotence, but those who do not wish to deceive themselves will be prepared for the possibility.

Then what should we work...

Then what should we work for? Only this: proper understanding; unselfish action; truthful speech. A resolve to accept whatever happens as necessary and familiar, flowing like water from that same source and spring.

It will be as well,...

It will be as well, I think, to explain these locutions of God, and to describe what the soul feels when it receives them, in order that you, my father, may understand the matter; for ever since that time of which I am speaking, when our Lord granted me that grace, it has been an ordinary occurrence until now, as will appear by what I have yet to say. The words are very distinctly formed; but by the bodily ear they are not heard. They are, however, much more clearly understood than they would be if they were heard by the ear. It is impossible not to understand them, whatever resistance we may offer. When we wish not to hear anything in this world, we can stop our ears, or give attention to something else: so that, even if we do hear, at least we can refuse to understand. In this locution of God addressed to the soul there is no escape, for in spite of ourselves we must listen; and the understanding must apply itself so thoroughly to the comprehension of that which God wills we should hear, that it is nothing to the purpose whether we will it or not; for it is His will, Who can do all things.

This morning the music of...

This morning the music of a brass band which had stopped under my windows moved me almost to tears. It exercised an indefinable, nostalgic power over me; it set me dreaming of another world, of infinite passion and supreme happiness. Such impressions are the echoes of Paradise in the soul; memories of ideal spheres whose sad sweetness ravishes and intoxicates the heart. O Plato! O Pythagoras! ages ago you heard these harmonies, surprised these moments of inward ecstasy, — knew these divine transports! If music thus carries us to heaven, it is because music is harmony, harmony is perfection, perfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven.

Live with the gods.

Live with the gods.

No nation ever had so...

No nation ever had so bad a neighbour as Germany has had in France for the last 400 years; bad in all manner of ways; insolent, rapacious, insatiable, unappeasable, continually aggressive. ... Germany, after 400 years of ill-usage, and generally ill-fortune, from that neighbour, has had at last the great happiness to see its enemy fairly down in this manner; and Germany, I do clearly believe, would be a foolish nation not to think of raising up some secure boundary-fence between herself and such a neighbour now that she has the chance.

When the individual finds in...

When the individual finds in her conscience beliefs that are relevant to public policy but incapable of the defense on the basis of beliefs common to her fellow citizens, she must sacrifice her conscience on the altar of public expediency.

Then, inasmuch as He too...

Then, inasmuch as He too has fabricated a world out of some underlying material which is unbegotten, and unmade, and contemporaneous with God, just as Marcion holds of the Creator, you reduce this likewise to the dignity of that local space which has enclosed two gods, both God and matter.

The obligation of submission to...

The obligation of submission to both, is discoverable by so clear and so simple an use of our intellectual faculties, that it may be said properly enough to be revealed to us by God; and tho both these laws cannot be said properly to be given by Him, yet our obligation to submit to the civil law is a principal paragraph in the natural law, which he has most manifestly given us.

Is any man afraid of...

Is any man afraid of change? Why what can take place without change?

A loving heart is the...

A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.

So true, moreover, is it...

So true, moreover, is it that divorce “was not from the beginning,” that among the Romans it is not till after the six hundredth year from the building of the city that this kind of “hard-heartedness” is set down as having been committed. But they indulge in promiscuous adulteries, even without divorcing (their partners): to us, even if we do divorce them, even marriage will not be lawful.

God created everything by number,...

God created everything by number, weight and measure.

His conflict with the Catholic...

His conflict with the Catholic Church arose because deep in his heart Galileo was a believer. There was for him no path of compromise, no way to have separate secular and theological cosmologies. If the Copernican system was true as he believed, what else could Galileo do but fight with every weapon he had in his arsenal... to make his Church accept a new system of the universe. ...In the contrast between Galileo's heroic stand when he tried to reform the cosmological basis of orthodox theology and his humbled, kneeling surrender when he disavowed his Copernicanism, we may sense the tremendous forces attendant on the birth of modern science.

The nature of the All...

The nature of the All moved to make the universe.

No one commits suicide for...

No one commits suicide for external reasons, only because of inner disequilibrium. Under similar adverse circumstances, some are indifferent, some are moved, some are driven to suicide.

Whoso belongs only to his...

Whoso belongs only to his own age, and reverences only its gilt Popinjays or smoot-smeared Mumbojumbos, must needs die with it.

Idleness is only fatal to...

Idleness is only fatal to the mediocre.

Utopus having understood that before...

Utopus having understood that before his coming among them the old inhabitants had been engaged in great quarrels concerning religion, by which they were so divided among themselves, that he found it an easy thing to conquer them, since, instead of uniting their forces against him, every different party in religion fought by themselves. After he had subdued them he made a law that every man might be of what religion he pleased, and might endeavour to draw others to it by the force of argument and by amicable and modest ways, but without bitterness against those of other opinions; but that he ought to use no other force but that of persuasion, and was neither to mix with it reproaches nor violence; and such as did otherwise were to be condemned to banishment or slavery. This law was made by Utopus, not only for preserving the public peace, which he saw suffered much by daily contentions and irreconcilable heats, but because he thought the interest of religion itself required it. He judged it not fit to determine anything rashly; and seemed to doubt whether those different forms of religion might not all come from God, who might inspire man in a different manner, and be pleased with this variety; he therefore thought it indecent and foolish for any man to threaten and terrify another to make him believe what did not appear to him to be true. And supposing that only one religion was really true, and the rest false, he imagined that the native force of truth would at last break forth and shine bright, if supported only by the strength of argument, and attended to with a gentle and unprejudiced mind; while, on the other hand, if such debates were carried on with violence and tumults, as the most wicked are always the most obstinate, so the best and most holy religion might be choked with superstition, as corn is with briars and thorns; he therefore left men wholly to their liberty, that they might be free to believe as they should see cause.

It is not possible to...

It is not possible to escape from the results of the irruption of faith into the structures of our knowledge.

Men exist for the sake...

Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them. (Long translation)

I am displeased with everything....

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

No lie you can speak...

No lie you can speak or act but it will come, after longer or shorter circulation, like a Bill drawn on Nature's Reality, and be presented there for payment, — with the answer, No effects.

The absurd is the essential...

The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.

I come out as if...

I come out as if there were no hours in the days, nor planets in the hours; Neither do I care for any thing, but that interlude of Perendenga in Michael Cervantes: Let the old Man my Master live, and Christ be with us thus all. Thou wilt wonder now where this drives, Conde de lemos, nor a cardinal to pray for.

From the moment of his...

From the moment of his self-dedication, when he threw His cares away, and went forth not knowing where to lay his head, the whole energy which others spend on interests of their own was poured into his humane and divine affections, and filled his life with an enthusiasm resistless and unique. However quiet his words, it is impossible not to feel the tender depths from which they come.

When scientists take part in...

When scientists take part in activity they transform themselves from scientists into acting beings, that is, they become elements, data, facts; as soon as they reflect on their activity, however, they are re-transformed into scientists. The trained specialist qua scientist looks upon himself as a chain of judgments and inferences; qua member of society, he regard himself as a mere object. The same holds for everyone. The individual is divided into innumerable functions, the interconnection of which are unknown. In society a man is pater familias under one aspect, business man under another, thinker under a third; to be more precise, he is not a human being at all, but all these aspects and many more in an inevitable succession.

If a man is mistaken,...

If a man is mistaken, instruct him kindly and show him his error. But if thou art not able, blame thyself, or blame not even thyself.

Our labour preserves us from...

Our labour preserves us from three great evils -- weariness, vice, and want.

Read day and night, devour...

Read day and night, devour books — these sleeping pills — not to know but to forget! Through books you can retrace your way back to the origins of spleen, discarding history and its illusions.

I suppose the body to...

I suppose the body to be nothing but a statue or machine made of earth, which God forms with the explicit intention of making it as much as possible like us.

It is a most earnest...

It is a most earnest thing to be alive in this world; to die is not sport for a man. Man's life never was a sport to him; it was a stern reality, altogether a serious matter to be alive!

"I conclude that all is...

"I conclude that all is well," says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.

Abstinence from all injustice to...

Abstinence from all injustice to other first-rate powers is a greater tower of strength than anything that can be gained by the sacrifice of permanent tranquillity for an apparent temporary advantage.

Similarly, societies where news is...

Similarly, societies where news is censored cannot enjoy the luxury of false objectivity because they do not have the true variety. In free civilizations, false objectivity must be fought by true objectivity, not by some alien bureaucracy. Prejudiced history is eliminated, or at least combated, by serious history, and corrupt journalism can only be defeated by honest journalism, not by a government commission whose first act may be to distribute some secret subsidies.

Every philosophical, ethical, and political...

Every philosophical, ethical, and political idea—its lifeline connecting it with its historical origins having been severed—has a tendency to become the nucleus of a new mythology, and this is one of the reasons why the advance of enlightenment tends at certain points to revert to superstition and paranoia. The majority principle … has become the sovereign force to which thought must cater. It is a new god, not in the sense in which the heralds of the great revolutions conceived it, namely, as a power of resistance to existing injustice, but as a power of resistance to anything that does not conform.

Have I done something for...

Have I done something for the general interest? Well then I have had my reward. Let this always be present to thy mind, and never stop doing such good.

All joys do not cause...

All joys do not cause laughter; great pleasures are serious: pleasures of love do not make us laugh.

Nothing surpasses the pleasures of...

Nothing surpasses the pleasures of idleness: even if the end of the world were to come, I would not leave my bed at an ungodly hour.

Enjoying things which are pleasant;...

Enjoying things which are pleasant; that is not the evil: it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is.

What is a rebel? A...

What is a rebel? A man who says no.

That war is an evil...

That war is an evil is a proposition so familiar to every one that it would be tedious to develop it. No one is forced to engage in it by ignorance, or kept out of it by fear, if he fancies there is anything to be gained by it.

Through a vicious circle of...

Through a vicious circle of pure reason skepsis itself becomes dogma.

Whatever happens to you has...

Whatever happens to you has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time. The twining strands of fate wove both of them together: your own existence and the things that happen to you.

The art of praising caused...

The art of praising caused the art of pleasing.

Life creates itself in delirium...

Life creates itself in delirium and is undone in ennui.

Yes, truly, it is a...

Yes, truly, it is a great thing for a Nation that it get an articulate voice; that it produce a man who will speak forth melodiously what the heart of it means!