The philosopher will ask himself...

The philosopher will ask himself … if the criticism we are now suggesting is not the philosophy which presses to the limit that criticism of false gods which Christianity has introduced into our history.

A wrongdoer is often a...

A wrongdoer is often a man who has left something undone, not always one who has done something.

An intellectual dapperling of these...

An intellectual dapperling of these times boasts chiefly of his irresistible perspicacity, his “dwelling in the daylight of truth,” and so forth; which, on examination, turns out to be a dwelling in the rush-light of “closet logic,” and a deep unconsciousness that there is any other light to dwell in or any other objects to survey with it.

The direction of the world...

The direction of the world overwhelms me at this time. In the long run, all the continents (yellow, black and brown) will spill over onto Old Europe. They are hundreds and hundreds of millions. They are hungry and they are not afraid to die. We no longer know how to die or how to kill. We could preach, but Europe believes in nothing. So, we must wait for the year 1000 or a miracle. For my part, I find it harder and harder to live before a wall.

Learn from thy errors to...

Learn from thy errors to be infallible, from thy misfortunes to be constant. There is nothing stronger than perseverance, for it ends in miracles.

Atheism is so senseless. When...

Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.

If it is permitted to...

If it is permitted to the enlightened but baffled Statesman, when deserted and fallen from his place, to appeal from the voices of the moment to the judgment of more impartial times, with what right can we call in question the loftier form of the same prophetic trust which looks to a present God rather than to future men?

Rememberest the gods, and that...

Rememberest the gods, and that they wish not to be flattered, but wish all reasonable beings to be made like themselves; and... rememberest that what does the work of a fig-tree is a fig-tree, and that what does the work of a dog is a dog, and that what does the work of a bee is a bee, and that what does the work of a man is a man.

How good would it be...

How good would it be if one could die by throwing oneself into an infinite void.

The highest ensign that men...

The highest ensign that men ever met and embraced under, the Cross itself, had no meaning save an accidental extrinsic one.

Great feelings take with them...

Great feelings take with them their own universe, splendid or abject. They light up with their passion an exclusive world in which they recognize their climate. There is a universe of jealousy, of ambition, of selfishness or generosity. A universe — in other words a metaphysic and an attitude of mind.

self-control contains honour as a...

self-control contains honour as a chief constituent, and honour bravery.

America is the object of...

America is the object of their loathing because, for a half-century or more, she has been the most prosperous and creative capitalist society on earth. Ultimately it is liberal democracy - or quite simply liberty itself - that they are eager to destroy, even though they are among its foremost beneficiaries, being free to travel anywhere, anytime in order to hatch their plots. If their diktats were carried out, if frontier barriers were reestablished everywhere, with passports and visas even for tourists, there could have been no Seattle and no Goteborg.

A man discovers what he...

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.

How much more damage anger...

How much more damage anger and grief do than the things that cause them.

Consciousness is nature's nightmare.

Consciousness is nature's nightmare.

What I have given in...

What I have given in the second book on the nature and properties of curved lines, and the method of examining them, is, it seems to me, as far beyond the treatment in the ordinary geometry, as the rhetoric of Cicero is beyond the a, b, c of children.

a matter in regard to...

a matter in regard to which if something be not done, something will do itself one day, and in a fashion that will please nobody

If the only significant history...

If the only significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be the history of its successive regrets and its impotences.

When night came on, the...

When night came on, the Macedonians and the barbarian crowd suddenly took fright in one of those mysterious panics to which great armies are liable...

Let us assume that we...

Let us assume that we invited an unknown person to a game of cards. If this person answered us, “I don’t play,” we would either interpret this to mean that he did not understand the game, or that he had an aversion to it which arose from economic, ethical, or other reasons. Let us imagine, however, that an honorable man, who was known to possess every possible skill in the game, and who was well versed in its rules and its forbidden tricks, but who could like a game and participate in it only when it was an innocent pastime, were invited into a company of clever swindlers, who were known as good players and to whom he was equal on both scores, to join them in a game. If he said, “I do not play,” we would have to join him in looking the people with whom he was talking straight in the face, and would be able to supplement his words as follows: “I don’t play, that is, with people such as you, who break the rules of the game, and rob it of its pleasure. If you offer to play a game, our mutual agreement, then, is that we recognize the capriciousness of chance as our master; and you call the science of your nimble fingers chance, and I must accept it as such, it I will, or run the risk of insulting you or choose the shame of imitating you.” … The opinion of Socrates can be summarized in these blunt words, when he said to the Sophists, the leaned men of his time, “I know nothing.” Therefore these words were a thorn in their eyes and a scourge on their backs.

It is as if thinking...

It is as if thinking itself had been reduced to the level of industrial processes, subjected to a close schedule—in short, made part and parcel of production.

Of the life of man...

Of the life of man the duration is but a point.

Prejudice is the reason of...

Prejudice is the reason of fools.

A human being possessed by...

A human being possessed by a belief and not eager to pass it on to others is a phenomenon alien to the earth, where our mania for salvation makes life unbreathable.

We have chosen Mahomet not...

We have chosen Mahomet not as the most eminent Prophet; but as the one we are freest to speak of. He is by no means the truest of Prophets; but I do esteem him a true one. Farther, as there is no danger of our becoming, any of us, Mahometans, I mean to say all the good of him I justly can. It is the way to get at his secret: let us try to understand what he meant with the world; what the world meant and means with him, will then be a more answerable question. Our current hypothesis about Mahomet, that he was a scheming Impostor, a Falsehood incarnate, that his religion is a mere mass of quackery and fatuity, begins really to be now untenable to any one. The lies, which well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man, are disgraceful to ourselves only.

The rest of the story,...

The rest of the story, to Grand's thinking, was very simple. The common lot of married couples. You get married, you go on loving a bit longer, you work. And you work so hard that it makes you forget to love.

Men shut their doors against...

Men shut their doors against a setting sun.

Neatness begets order; but from...

Neatness begets order; but from order to taste there is the same difference as from taste to genius, or from love to friendship.

Marcus Aurelius was the perfect...

Marcus Aurelius was the perfect man, says Renan. Yes; the great emperor was a perfect man. But how intolerable were the endless claims upon him! He staggered under the burden of the empire. He was conscious how inadequate one man was to bear the weight of that Titan and too vast orb.

One dies twice: to cease...

One dies twice: to cease to live is nothing, but to cease to love and to be loved is an insupportable death.

His power to adore is...

His power to adore is responsible for all his crimes: a man who loves a god unduly forces other men to love his god, eager to exterminate them if they refuse.

The "imagination that shudders at...

The "imagination that shudders at the Hell of Dante," is not that the same faculty, weaker in degree, as Dante's own? No one but Shakspeare can embody, out of Saxo Grammaticus, the story of Hamlet as Shakspeare did: but every one models some kind of story out of it; every one embodies it better or worse. We need not spend time in defining. Where there is no specific difference, as between round and square, all definition must be more or less arbitrary. A man that has so much more of the poetic element developed in him as to have become noticeable, will be called Poet by his neighbors.

The artist reconstructs the world...

The artist reconstructs the world to his plan.

Ravana, unwilling under the influence...

Ravana, unwilling under the influence of vanity to restore a stranger's wife, as well as Duryodhana to part with a portion of his kingdom.

Because he never raises his...

Because he never raises his eyes to the great and the meaningful, the philistine has taken experience as his gospel. It has become for him a message about life's commonness. But he has never grasped that there exists something other than experience, that there are values—inexperienceable—which we serve.

I cannot recall a time...

I cannot recall a time when American education was not in a "crisis." We have lived through Sputnik (when we were "falling behind the Russians"), through the era of "Johnny can't read," and through the upheavals of the Sixties. Now a good many books are telling us that the university is going to hell in several different directions at once. I believe that, at least in part, the crisis rhetoric has a structural explanation: since we do not have a national consensus on what success in higher education would consist of, no matter what happens, some sizable part of the population is going to regard the situation as a disaster. As with taxation and relations between the sexes, higher education is essentially and continuously contested territory. Given the history of that crisis rhetoric, one's natural response to the current cries of desperation might reasonably be one of boredom.

Not the wretchedest man or...

Not the wretchedest man or woman but has a deep secretive mythology with which to wrestle with the material world and to overcome it and pass beyond it. Not the wretchedest human being but has his share in the creative energy that builds the world. We are all creators. We all create a mythological world of our own out of certain shapeless materials.

Anything that is too stupid...

Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.

History shows that the thinkers...

History shows that the thinkers who mounted on the top of the ladder of questions, who set their foot on the last rung, that of the absurd, have bequeathed to posterity only an example of sterility.

...in statu naturae Mensuram juris...

...in statu naturae Mensuram juris esse Utilitatem.

Great souls are always loyally...

Great souls are always loyally submissive, reverent to what is over them.

We all have a weakness...

We all have a weakness for beauty.

To a wise man, the...

To a wise man, the whole earth is open; for the native land of a good soul is the whole earth.

Only a thoughtless observer can...

Only a thoughtless observer can deny that correspondences come into play between the world of modern technology and the archaic symbol-world of mythology.

Religious feeling is as much...

Religious feeling is as much a verity as any other part of human consciousness; and against it, on the subjective side, the waves of science beat in vain.

Neither perception nor true opinion,...

Neither perception nor true opinion, nor reason or explanation combined with true opinion could be knowledge… Then our art of midwifery declare to us that all the offspring that have been born are mere wind-eggs and not worth rearing… and if you remain barren, you will be less harsh and gentler to your associates, for you will have the wisdom not to think you know that which you do not know.

As for silver, I never...

As for silver, I never could see any degree of fire make it part with any of its three principles. ...But admitting, that some parts of the silver were driven away by the violence of the fire, what proof is there, that it was either the salt, the sulphur, or the mercury of the metal, and not rather a part of it homogeneous to what remained? for besides that the silver, that was left, seemed not sensibly altered, which probably would have appeared, had so much of any one of its principles been separated from it.

I live only because it...

I live only because it is in my power to die when I choose to: without the idea of suicide, I'd have killed myself right away.

And this Feare of things...

And this Feare of things invisible, is the naturall Seed of that, which every one in himself calleth Religion; and in them that worship, or feare that Power otherwise than they do, Superstition.