Wonder, indeed, is, on all...

Wonder, indeed, is, on all hands, dying out: it is the sign of uncultivation to wonder.

It's better to bet on...

It's better to bet on this life than on the next.

Thus, Reader, have I published...

Thus, Reader, have I published that knowledge which God gave me "to the fruit of a good conscience." I have not bushelled my light nor buried my talent in the ground. I will now withdraw and leave the stage to the next actor some Peripatetic perhaps, whose sic probo shall serve me for a comedy. I have seen scolds laughed at but never admired: so he that multiplies discourses makes a serious cause ridiculous.

Tact is the knack of...

Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.

The secret belief that the...

The secret belief that the Lord of conscience loves and accepts each faithful sacrifice is the ultimate and sufficient support of all goodness; dispensing with the chorus of approving voices; replacing all vain self-reliance with a Divine strength; and with the peace of a reconciled nature consoling the inevitable sorrows of a devoted life.

Acquire the contemplative way of...

Acquire the contemplative way of seeing how all things change into one another, and constantly attend to it, and exercise thyself about this part [of philosophy]. For nothing is so much adapted to produce magnanimity. ...But as to what any man shall say or think about him, or do against him, he never even thinks of it, being himself contented with these two things: with acting justly in what he now does, and being satisfied with what is now assigned to him; and he lays aside all distracting and busy pursuits, and desires nothing else than to accomplish the straight course through the law, and by accomplishing the straight course to follow God.

Great joys, why do they...

Great joys, why do they bring us sadness? Because there remains from these excesses only a feeling of irrevocable loss and desertion which reaches a high degree of negative intensity. At such moments, instead of a gain, one keenly feels loss. sadness accompanies all those events in which life expends itself. its intensity is equal to its loss. Thus death causes the greatest sadness.

That there should one Man...

That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy.

At any street corner the...

At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.

The freaks of chance are...

The freaks of chance are not determinable by calculation.

Since no example of Leninist...

Since no example of Leninist socialism is other than totalitarian and bureaucratic, one wonders how the doctrinaire ideologists can dismiss so disdainfully those who point out that the promise of socialism in freedom, while surely praiseworthy, remains a promise only, not something experienced in reality. The utopia of socialism with a human face has been crushed everywhere even before it could be born. How distressing that becoming humane, which should be the least we could expect from a regime dedicated to liberating humanity, should present for socialism a problem as impossible as squaring the circle.

The disparagement of empirical evidence...

The disparagement of empirical evidence in favor of a metaphysical world of illusion has its origin in the conflict between the emancipated individual of bourgeois society and his fate within that society.

Pain is the opposite of...

Pain is the opposite of strength, and so is anger.

Saints live in flames; wise...

Saints live in flames; wise men, next to them.

M. Desargues puts me under...

M. Desargues puts me under obligations on account of the pains that it has pleased him to have in me, in that he shows that he is sorry that I do not wish to study more in geometry, but I have resolved to quit only abstract geometry, that is to say, the consideration of questions which serve only to exercise the mind, and this, in order to study another kind of geometry, which has for its object the explanation of the phenomena of nature... You know that all my physics is nothing else than geometry.

A witty statesman said, you...

A witty statesman said, you might prove anything by figures.

A fate is not a...

A fate is not a punishment.

The Spartans meanwhile, man to...

The Spartans meanwhile, man to man, and with their war songs in the ranks, exhorted each brave comrade to remember what he had learned before; well aware that the long training of action was of more use for saving lives than any brief verbal exhortation, though ever so well delivered.

Act well at the moment,...

Act well at the moment, and you have performed a good action to all eternity.

In the world of action,...

In the world of action, we know that it is disastrous to treat animals or human beings as though they were stocks and stones. Why should we suppose this treatment to be any less mistaken in the world of ideas?

A person who doesn't know...

A person who doesn't know what the universe is doesn't know who they are. A person who doesn't know their purpose in life doesn't know who they are or what the universe is. A person who doesn't know any of these things doesn't know why they are here. So what to make of people who seek or avoid the praise of those who have no knowledge of where or who they are?

Shun idleness: it is the...

Shun idleness: it is the rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals.

Far from diminishing the appetite...

Far from diminishing the appetite for power, suffering exasperates it; hence the mind feels more comfortable in the society of a braggart than in that of a martyr; and nothing is more repugnant to it than the spectacle of dying for an idea.

The greatest of faults, I...

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.

Yes, everyone sleeps at that...

Yes, everyone sleeps at that hour, and this is reassuring, since the great longing of an unquiet heart is to possess constantly and consciously the loved one...

Every room Hath blaz'd with lights,...

Every room Hath blaz'd with lights, and bray'd with minstrelsy.

The public seldom forgive twice.

The public seldom forgive twice.

Marcus Aurelius was the most...

Marcus Aurelius was the most modest, introspective and long-suffering of monarchs... [H]e was a good man and an enlightened ruler who wished only the best for his people. He had been carefully chosen and groomed for his job. Sickly and serious-minded as a child, he had developed (under the guidance of 25 distinguished tutors) into a dedicated Stoic, a practitioner of a philosophy that preached simplicity, self-discipline, endurance and duty. Here was the true philosopher-king that Plato had talked about long ago...

It is difficult to free...

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.

By capitulating to life, this...

By capitulating to life, this world has betrayed nothingness. . . . I resign from movement, and from my dreams. Absence! You shall be my sole glory. . . . Let "desire" be forever stricken from the dictionary, and from the soul! I retreat before the dizzying farce of tomorrows. And if I still cling to a few hopes, I have lost forever the faculty of hoping.

All old Poems, Homer's and...

All old Poems, Homer's and the rest, are authentically Songs. I would say, in strictness, that all right Poems are; that whatsoever is not sung is properly no Poem, but a piece of Prose cramped into jingling lines,—to the great injury of the grammar, to the great grief of the reader, for most part! What we wants to get at is the thought the man had, if he had any: why should he twist it into jingle, if he could speak it out plainly? It is only when the heart of him is rapt into true passion of melody, and the very tones of him, according to Coleridge's remark, become musical by the greatness, depth and music of his thoughts, that we can give him right to rhyme and sing; that we call him a Poet, and listen to him as the Heroic of Speakers,—whose speech is Song.

Artistic creation is a demand...

Artistic creation is a demand for unity and a rejection of the world.

Don't judge the future of...

Don't judge the future of a person based on his present conditions, because time has the power to change black coal to shiny diamond.

In what time does man...

In what time does man live? The thinkers have always known that he does not live in any time at all. The immortality of thoughts and deeds banishes him to a timeless realm at whose heart an inscrutable death lies in wait. ... Devoured by the countless demands of the moment, time slipped away from him; the medium in which the pure melody of his youth would swell was destroyed. The fulfilled tranquility in which his late maturity would ripen was stolen from him. It was purloined by everyday reality, which, with its events, chance occurrences, and obligations, disrupted the myriad opportunities of youthful time, immortal time. ... From day to day, second to second, the self preserves itself, clinging to that instrument: time, the instrument that it was supposed to play.

The student should have enough...

The student should have enough knowledge of his or her cultural tradition to know how it got to be the way it is. This involves both political and social history, on the one hand, as well as the mastery of some of the great philosophical and literary texts of the culture on the other. It involves reading not only texts that are of great value, like those of Plato, but many less valuable that have been influential, such as the works of Marx. For the United States, the dominant tradition is, and for the foreseeable future, will remain the European tradition. The United States is, after all, a product of the European Enlightenment. However, you do not understand your own tradition if you do not see it in relation to others. Works from other cultural traditions need to be studied as well.

Leisurely, copious, humorous.

Leisurely, copious, humorous.

Business is the salt of...

Business is the salt of life.

History proves nothing because it...

History proves nothing because it contains everything.

"For he that hath strength...

"For he that hath strength enough to protect all, wants not sufficiency to oppresse all."

The man whom Nature has...

The man whom Nature has appointed to do great things is, first of all, furnished with that openness to Nature which renders him incapable of being insincere! To his large, open, deep-feeling heart Nature is a Fact: all hearsay is hearsay; the unspeakable greatness of this Mystery of Life, let him acknowledge it or not, nay even though he seem to forget it or deny it, is ever present to him,—fearful and wonderful, on this hand and on that.

There are causes worth dying...

There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for.

The man who is fortunate...

The man who is fortunate in his choice of son-in-law gains a son; the man unfortunate in his choice loses his daughter also.

History breaks down in images...

History breaks down in images not into stories.

The Christian philosopher of to-day...

The Christian philosopher of to-day has larger capacities and fuller knowledge than the Israelite of the time of Moses. What the one accepted as literal truth the other cannot accept save as a myth or figure. The children of Israel received without idealisation the statements of their great lawgiver. To them the tables of the law were true tablets of stone, prepared, engraved, broken, and re-engraved; while the graving tool which thus inscribed the law was held undoubtingly to be the finger of God. To us such conceptions are impossible. We may by habit use the words, but we attach to them no definite meaning.

I do see one large...

I do see one large and grievous kind of ignorance, separate from the rest, and as weighty as all the other parts put together. Thinking that one knows a thing when one does not know it. Through this, I believe, all the mistakes of the mind are caused in all of us.

I find that even Eminent...

I find that even Eminent Writers (such as Raymund Lully, Paracelsus, and others) do so abuse the termes they employ, that as they will now and then give divers things one name, so they will oftentimes give one thing, many Names; and some of them (perhaps) such, as do much more properly signifie some Distinct Body of another kind; nay even in Technical Words or Termes of Art, they refrain not from this Confounding Liberty; but will, as I have Observ'd call the same Substance, sometimes the Sulphur, and Sometimes the Mercury, of a Body.

The skepticism which fails to...

The skepticism which fails to contribute to the ruin of our health is merely an intellectual exercise.

The doctrine of Right and...

The doctrine of Right and Wrong, is perpetually disputed, both by Pen and the Sword: Whereas the doctrine of Lines, and Figures, is not so; because men care not, in that subject what be truth, as a thing that crosses no mans ambition, profit, or lust. For I doubt not, but if it had been a thing contrary to any mans right of dominion, or to the interest of men that have dominion, That the three Angles of a Triangle, should be equall to two Angles of a Square; that doctrine should have been, if not disputed, yet by the burning of all books of Geometry, suppressed, as far as he whom it concerned was able.

He who takes not counsel...

He who takes not counsel of the Unseen and Silent, from him will never come real visibility and speech.

You can tell the man...

You can tell the man who rings true from the man who rings false, not by his deeds alone, but also by his desires.