Our true Deity is Mechanism....

Our true Deity is Mechanism. It has subdued external Nature for us, and we think it will do all other things. We are Giants in physical power: in a deeper than metaphorical sense, we are Titans, that strive, by heaping mountain on mountain, to conquer Heaven also.

Autumn is a second Spring...

Autumn is a second Spring when every leaf is a flower.

If honor were profitable, everybody...

If honor were profitable, everybody would be honorable.

I can calculate the motions...

I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of the people.

There is nothing man desires...

There is nothing man desires more than a heroic life: there is nothing less common to men than heroism.

If...it be a thing external...

If...it be a thing external that causes thy grief, know, that it is not that properly that doth cause it, but thine own conceit and opinion concerning the thing: which thou mayest rid thyself of, when thou wilt.

How I wish I didn't...

How I wish I didn't know anything about myself and this world!

As the Swiss inscription says:...

As the Swiss inscription says: Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden— "Speech is silvern, Silence is golden"; or, as I might rather express it: speech is of time, silence is of eternity.

Great novelists are philosopher novelists...

Great novelists are philosopher novelists — that is, the contrary of thesis-writers.

Be pleased to consider, that...

Be pleased to consider, that obstinacy enslaves the Soul, and clips the wings which God gave Her for flight, and discovery.

The New Deal is a...

The New Deal is a phase of the transition process from capitalism to managerial society. The New Deal is not Stalinism and not Nazism. But no candid observer, friend or enemy of the New Deal, can deny that in terms of economic, social, political, ideological changes from traditional capitalism, the New Deal moves in the same direction as Stalinism and Nazism.

At present, when the prevailing...

At present, when the prevailing forms of society have become hindrances to the free expression of human powers, it is precisely the abstract branches of science, mathematics and theoretical physics, which … offer a less distorted form of knowledge than other branches of science which are interwoven with the pattern of daily life, and the practicality of which seemingly testifies to their realistic character.

He that dies in extreme...

He that dies in extreme old age will be reduced to the same state with him that is cut down untimely.

What am I, other than...

What am I, other than a chance in the infinite probabilities of not having been!

Blessed is the healthy nature;...

Blessed is the healthy nature; it is the coherent, sweetly co-operative, not incoherent, self-distracting, self-destructive one!

Outside of that single fatality...

Outside of that single fatality of death, everything, joy or happiness, is liberty.

As I ever disclaimed alchemy...

As I ever disclaimed alchemy in the vulgar sense, so I thought fit to let the alchemists know it, lest — in the perusal of my writings — they should fix a construction to some passages which cannot suit with the judgment of their author.

A fool is always troublesome,...

A fool is always troublesome, a man of sense perceives when he pleases or is tiresome ; he goes away the very minute before it might have been thought he stayed too long.

Reason as an organ for...

Reason as an organ for perceiving the true nature of reality and determining the guiding principles of our lives has come to be regarded as obsolete.

To live your brief life...

To live your brief life rightly, isn't that enough? (Hays translation)

It is very strange that...

It is very strange that men should deny a creator and yet attribute to themselves the power of creating eels.

Life is not, and death...

Life is not, and death is a dream. Suffering has invented them both as self-justification. Man alone is torn between an unreality and an illusion.

No sadder proof can be...

No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.

In Oran, as elsewhere, for...

In Oran, as elsewhere, for want of time and thought, people have to love one another without knowing it.

The country on the sea...

The country on the sea coast, now called Macedonia, was first acquired by Alexander, the father of Perdiccas, and his ancestors, originally Temenids from Argos...The whole is now called Macedonia, and at the time of the invasion of Sitalces, Perdiccas, Alexander's son, was the reigning king.

Suppose that we could arrange...

Suppose that we could arrange the gradual extinction of carnivorous species, replacing them with new herbivorous ones. Or suppose that we could intervene genetically, so that currently carnivorous species would gradually evolve into herbivorous ones, thereby fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy. If we could bring about the end of predation by one or the other of these means at little cost to ourselves, ought we to do it?

Be like a rocky promontory...

Be like a rocky promontory against which the restless surf continually pounds; it stands fast while the churning sea is lulled to sleep at its feet. I hear you say, "How unlucky that this should happen to me!" Not at all! Say instead, "How lucky that I am not broken by what has happened and am not afraid of what is about to happen. The same blow might have struck anyone, but not many would have absorbed it without capitulation or complaint."

Moderation is the pleasure of...

Moderation is the pleasure of the wise.

The notion of nothingness is...

The notion of nothingness is not characteristic of laboring humanity: those who toil have neither time nor inclination to weigh their dust; they resign themselves to the difficulties or the doltishness of fate; they hope: hope is a slave's virtue.

I will remark again, however,...

I will remark again, however, as a fact not unimportant to be understood, that the different sphere constitutes the grand origin of such distinction; that the Hero can be Poet, Prophet, King, Priest or what you will, according to the kind of world he finds himself born into. I confess, I have no notion of a truly great man that could not be all sorts of men.

A character is never the...

A character is never the author who created him. It is quite likely, however, that an author may be all his characters simultaneously.

The king who is situated...

The king who is situated anywhere immediately on the circumference of the conqueror's territory is termed the enemy.The king who is likewise situated close to the enemy, but separated from the conqueror only by the enemy, is termed the friend (of the conqueror).

By day certainly the combatants...

By day certainly the combatants have a clearer notion, though even then by no means of all that takes place, no one knowing much of anything that does not does not go on in his own immediate neighborhood; but in a night engagement (and this was the only one that occurred between great armies during the war) how could anyone know anything for certain?

An utterance can have Intentionality,...

An utterance can have Intentionality, just as a belief has Intentionality, but whereas the Intentionality of the belief is intrinsic the Intentionality of the utterance is derived.

The craftiest wiles are too...

The craftiest wiles are too short and ragged a cloak to cover a bad heart.

Find time still to be...

Find time still to be learning somewhat good, and give up being desultory.

The best government is a...

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

Try to be free: you...

Try to be free: you will die of hunger.

To understand this for sense...

To understand this for sense it is not required that a man should be a geometrician or a logician, but that he should be mad.

There is clear truth in...

There is clear truth in the idea that a struggle from the lower classes of society, towards the upper regions and rewards of society, must ever continue. Strong men are born there, who ought to stand elsewhere than there.

The only way to deal...

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

It is hard to fight...

It is hard to fight desire; but to control it is the sign of a reasonable man.

Audacious Titan of the modern...

Audacious Titan of the modern age, possessing essentially a combative intellect; a poet and philosopher militant, who stood alone making war upon the authority of Aristotle in science, of Machiavelli in statecraft, and of Petrarch in art.

They do not know the...

They do not know the penalty of unrighteousness, which is the thing they most ought to know. For it is not what they think it is—scourgings and death, which they sometimes escape entirely when they have done wrong—but a penalty which it is impossible to escape… Two patterns, my friend, are set up in the world, the divine, which is most blessed, and the godless, which is most wretched… and their silliness and extreme foolishness blind them to the fact that through their unrighteous acts they are made like the one and unlike the other. They therefore pay the penalty for this by living a life that conforms to the pattern they resemble.

Man is the animal who...

Man is the animal who weeps and laughs — and writes. If the first Prometheus brought fire from heaven in a fennel-stalk, the last will take it back — in a book.

Of no writer can it...

Of no writer can it be said with greater truth that the half is greater than the whole. His histories may still be studied as models of balanced and lucid narrative. His letters hold an honoured place even among the greatest. Above all, his fame rests securely upon his two stories, Zadig and Candide, those little masterpieces of swift irony and crystal-clear criticism which, in a hundred and fifty years, have lost not one spark of their brilliance, and which will perish only with the death of the French tongue. If we might give to Voltaire and Diderot two books apiece, and exclude the erudition which was their pride, they would stand unchallenged in their century. Candide and Zadig are still supreme, and what but they are worthy to be set on the same shelf with the Neveu de Rameau and the Paradoxe?

Thanks to depression — that...

Thanks to depression — that alpinism of the indolent — we scale every summit and daydream over every precipice from our bed.

So that in the first...

So that in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in Death. And the cause of this is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to, or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more.

The English are a dumb...

The English are a dumb people. They can do great acts, but not describe them.

There are many who know...

There are many who know many things, yet are lacking in wisdom.