Rest satisfied with doing well,...

Rest satisfied with doing well, and leave others to talk of you as they please.

The stronger becomes master of...

The stronger becomes master of the weaker, in so far as the latter cannot assert its degree of independence — here there is no mercy, no forbearance, even less a respect for "laws."

If you want to be...

If you want to be happy, be.

First Theory.—There is no Providence...

First Theory.—There is no Providence at all for anything in the Universe; all parts of the Universe, the heavens and what they contain, owe their origin to accident and chance; there exists no being that rules and governs them or provides for them. This is the theory of Epicurus...

England's genius filled all measure...

England's genius filled all measure Of heart and soul, of strength and pleasure, Gave to the mind its emperor, And life was larger than before: Nor sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit. The men who lived with him became Poets, for the air was fame.

It is now highly feasible...

It is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at a 'higher standard of living than any have ever known.' It no longer has to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary and henceforth unrationalizable as mandated by survival... It is a matter of converting the high technology from weaponry to livingry.

There is no original truth,...

There is no original truth, only original error.

Four days after this was...

Four days after this was given to the world he took to his bed, and he remained there for nine weeks. Such a blow following hard on the heels of such a triumph aroused the liveliest sympathy. The doors of the Royal Institution were beset by anxious inquirers, and written reports of his condition at various periods of the day had to be posted in the hall.

The true Poet is all-knowing;...

The true Poet is all-knowing; he is an actual world in miniature.

Above all things reverence thy...

Above all things reverence thy Self.

You know these things as...

You know these things as thoughts, but your thoughts are not your experiences, they are an echo and after-effect of your experiences: as when your room trembles when a carriage goes past. I however am sitting in the carriage, and often I am the carriage itself.

Tolstoy, who among European writers...

Tolstoy, who among European writers of the nineteenth century probably had the widest access to all sectors of his society, was able to stock War and Peace with an enormous cast of characters and range of situations.

Abraham was the first to...

Abraham was the first to teach the Unity of God, to establish the faith, to cause it to remain among coming generations, and to win his fellow-men to his doctrine; as Scripture says of him: "I know him, that he will command,". (Gen. xviii. 19)

Write it on your heart...

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

I was convinced in 1927...

I was convinced in 1927 that humanity's most fundamental survival problems could never be solved by politics.

The Pythagoreans thought those who...

The Pythagoreans thought those who teach for the sake of reward show themselves worse than sculptors, or artists who perform the work sitting. For these, when someone orders wood to make a statue of Hermes, search for wood suited to receive the proper form; while those pretend that they can readily produce the works of virtue from every nature.

A fool is known by...

A fool is known by his Speech; and a wise man by Silence.

I did not direct my...

I did not direct my life. I didn't design it. I never made decisions. Things always came up and made them for me. That's what life is.

There are two godheads: the...

There are two godheads: the world and my independent I. I am either happy or unhappy, that is all. It can be said: good or evil do not exist. A man who is happy must have no fear. Not even in the face of death. Only a man who lives not in time but in the present is happy.

The depths of the soul...

The depths of the soul are not a faculty, a “power” of the soul, but rather the place where uncreated grace operates, God himself who “works with the soul to such an extent that he frees it from itself, as a creature, so that nothing remains but God and the soul itself, without mediation.”

Shall I tell you the...

Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: Every man I meet is my master at some point, and in that, I learn of him.

It is to be feared...

It is to be feared that Spinoza would not have been enlightened enough to appreciate the beneficient system of the Ph.D. degree, introduced into English universities as a measure of post-war propaganda, whereby the time and energy of those who are qualified to do research are expended in supervising the work of those who never will be.

I see philosophy as a...

I see philosophy as a fairly abstract activity, as concerned mainly with the analysis of criticism and concepts, and of course most usefully of scientific concepts.

Practice yourself, for heaven's sake,...

Practice yourself, for heaven's sake, in little things; and thence proceed to greater.

In this theater of man's...

In this theater of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.

What I give is the...

What I give is the morphology of the use of an expression. I show that it has kinds of uses of which you had not dreamed. In philosophy one feels forced to look at a concept in a certain way. What I do is suggest, or even invent, other ways of looking at it. I suggest possibilities of which you had not previously thought. You thought that there was one possibility, or only two at most. But I made you think of others. Furthermore, I made you see that it was absurd to expect the concept to conform to those narrow possibilities. Thus your mental cramp is relieved, and you are free to look around the field of use of the expression and to describe the different kinds of uses of it.

I am the Universe.

I am the Universe.

Every man I meet is...

Every man I meet is in some way my superior, and in that, I can learn of him.

It is sheer nonsense to...

It is sheer nonsense to expect that any human being has yet been able to attain such insight into the problems of society that he can really identify the central problems and determine how they should be solved. The systems in which we live are far too complicated as yet for our intellectual powers and technology to understand.

Beauty is a pledge of...

Beauty is a pledge of the possible conformity between the soul and nature, and consequently a ground of faith in the supremacy of the good.

Know, first, who you are,...

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

Much learning does not teach...

Much learning does not teach wisdom; otherwise it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, and again Xenophanes and Hecataeus.

Why in the world shouldn't...

Why in the world shouldn't they have regarded with awe and reverence that act by which the human race is perpetuated. Not every religion has to have St. Augustine's attitude to sex. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church, everyone present knows what is going to happen that night, but that doesn't prevent it being a religious ceremony.

There are no contests in...

There are no contests in the Art of Peace. A true warrior is invincible because he or she contests with nothing. Defeat means to defeat the mind of contention that we harbor within.

Self-command is the main elegance.

Self-command is the main elegance.

Enemies are hostile, out to...

Enemies are hostile, out to stop you, to eliminate you and your ideas; they are also to be loved, even as yourself.

Professional philosophers are usually only...

Professional philosophers are usually only apologists: that is, they are absorbed in defending some vested illusion or some eloquent idea. Like lawyers or detectives, they study the case for which they are retained.

We speak not strictly and...

We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.

Those of our pleasures which...

Those of our pleasures which come most rarely give the greatest delight.

Around 600 BCE, Pythagoras observed...

Around 600 BCE, Pythagoras observed that the tones of a lyre sound most harmonious when the ratio of string lengths forms a simple whole-number fraction. Inspired by such hints, Pythagoras and his followers made a remarkable intuitive leap. They foresaw the possibility of a different kind of world-model, less dependent on the accident of our senses but more in tune with Nature's hidden harmonies, and ultimately more faithful to reality. This is the meaning of... "All things are number."

To write well is to...

To write well is to think well; there is no art of style distinct from the culture of the mind. The good writer is a complete mind, gifted with judgment, passion, imagination, and at the same time well trained. The inner qualities of rectitude, of brilliant geniality, are not given; instruction, wealth of information, fulness of knowledge, are acquired. Thus good training of the mind is the only school of good style. Wanting that, you have merely rhetoric and bad taste.

115. If you tried to...

115. If you tried to doubt everything you would not get as far as doubting anything. The game of doubting itself presupposes .

O water of the river...

O water of the river Ganges, thou rememberst the dayWhen our torrent flooded thy valleys...

"We, as we read," Ralph...

"We, as we read," Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in an essay on history, "must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner; must fasten these images to some reality in our secret experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly."

It is not uninteresting to...

It is not uninteresting to observe in society the opinions of its different classes respecting honours conferred on science. Military and naval men, especially the most eminent, feel that genius is limited by no profession, and themselves sympathizing with it, would gladly hail as brothers in the same distinction, the philosopher and the poet. With lawyers the case is reversed ; genius dwells not in their courts : industry and acuteness, monopolised by one absorbing professional subject, exclude larger views; and ribbons not being amongst the honoraria of their own profession, they reprobate their application to science. To this there are, however, some noble exceptions. Amongst the brightest ornaments, of their own profession, men are to be found of larger experience and more extended views than it often produces, who are themselves qualified to have become discoverers in other sciences. It is much to be regretted when such powers are applied to the mere administration, instead of to the reformation, of the laws of their country.

The young man who has...

The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.

We are all attached to...

We are all attached to the throne of the Supreme Being by a supple chain that restrains us without enslaving us. Nothing is more admirable in the universal order of things than the action of free beings under the divine hand. Freely slaves, they act voluntarily and necessarily at the same time; they really do what they will, but without being able to disturb the general plans. Each of these beings occupies the centre of a sphere of activity whose diameter varies according to the will of the Eternal Geometer, who can extend, restrict, check, or direct the will without altering its nature.

That original intelligence, say the...

That original intelligence, say the MAGIANS, who is the first principle of all things, discovers himself immediately to the mind and understanding alone; but has placed the sun as his image in the visible universe; and when that bright luminary diffuses its beams over the earth and the firmament, it is a faint copy of the glory which resides in the higher heavens. If you would escape the displeasure of this divine being, you must be careful never to set your bare foot upon the ground, nor spit into a fire, nor throw any water upon it, even though it were consuming a whole city. Who can express the perfections of the Almighty? say the Mahometans. Even the noblest of his works, if compared to him, are but dust and rubbish. How much more must human conception fall short of his infinite perfections? His smile and favour renders men for ever happy; and to obtain it for your children, the best method is to cut off from them, while infants, a little bit of skin, about half the breadth of a farthing. Take two bits of cloth, say the Roman catholics, about an inch or an inch and a half square, join them by the corners with two strings or pieces of tape about sixteen inches long, throw this over your head, and make one of the bits of cloth lie upon your breast, and the other upon your back, keeping them next your skin: There is not a better secret for recommending yourself to that infinite Being, who exists from eternity to eternity.

The tetrad was called by...

The tetrad was called by the Pythagoreans every number, because it comprehends in itself all the numbers as far as to the decad, and the decad itself; for the sum of 1, 2, 3, and 4, is 10. Hence both the decad and the tetrad were said by them to be every number; the decad indeed in energy, but the tetrad in capacity. The sum likewise of these four numbers was said by them to constitute the tetractys, in which all harmonic ratios are included. For 4 to 1, which is a quadruple ratio, forms the symphony bisdiapason; the ratio of 3 to 2, which is sesquialter forms the symphony diapente; 4 to 3, which is sesquitertian, the symphony diatessaron; and 2 to 1, which is a duple ratio, forms the diapason.

A man will be imprisoned...

A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push it.