The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends
The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival
He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws
No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education
The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything
Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms
The empty vessel makes the loudest sound
The secret to humor is surprise
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life
A friend to all is a friend to none
It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages
Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil
Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another
Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck
The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal
Democracy… is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike
In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous
Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom
It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself
People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness
By a lie, a man… annihilates his dignity as a man
An action, to have moral worth, must be done from duty
The greatest wealth is to live content with little
It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience
Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination
Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference
There is something splendid about innocence; but what is bad about it, in turn, is that it cannot protect itself very well and is easily seduced
To be is to do
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it
Man is the cruelest animal
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others
Without music, life would be a mistake
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently
No one is a friend to his friend who does not love in return
In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so
Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything
If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on
We make war that we may live in peace
There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth
He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies
One ought to hold on to one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too
In heaven, all the interesting people are missing
The lonely one offers his hand too quickly to whomever he encounters
Faith: not wanting to know what the truth is
Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood
No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you yourself alone
Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me
Love is a serious mental disease
Quality is not an act, it is a habit
Genius is the ability to independently arrive at and understand concepts that would normally have to be taught by another person
Courage is knowing what not to fear
The measure of a man is what he does with power
Man – a being in search of meaning
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others
A friend to all is a friend to none
Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge
The soul never thinks without a picture
One who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him
We are twice armed if we fight with faith
I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time
You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star
There are no facts, only interpretations
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work
Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something
A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers
The humiliating difference between laymen and clergymen must disappear, and equality spring from true liberty
When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago
The energy of the mind is the essence of life
We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without
I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you
Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts
Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet
The end of labor is to gain leisure
It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!
Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind
Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god
If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature’s way
Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law
What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do
Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made
Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty
There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands
In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule
For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories
Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach
All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else
There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot
To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way
They certainly give very strange names to diseases
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors
The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time
May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law
Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed
The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night
I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief
Ingratitude is the essence of vileness
I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you
The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile
Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself
Happiness depends upon ourselves
You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you
Well begun is half done
Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar
Man must be disciplined, for he is by nature raw and wild
Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings — always darker, emptier and simpler
Is man merely a mistake of God’s? Or God merely a mistake of man?
All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason
The beginning is the most important part of the work
The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant
Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly
Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play
Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s intelligence without the guidance of another
The law is reason, free from passion
Only he who, himself enlightened, is not afraid of shadows
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet
At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet
Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt
Hope is a waking dream
We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once
Without man and his potential for moral progress, the whole of reality would be a mere wilderness, a thing in vain, and have no final purpose
Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality
When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them
There is no great genius without some touch of madnes
The busier we are, the more acutely we feel that we live, the more conscious we are of life
Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue
For peace to reign on Earth, humans must evolve into new beings who have learned to see the whole first
How then is perfection to be sought? Wherein lies our hope? In education, and in nothing else
The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light
What does your conscience say?-‘You should become the person you are
The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly
He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals
Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee
At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst
Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder
The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances
A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men
All false art, all vain wisdom, lasts its time but finally destroys itself, and its highest culture is also the epoch of its decay
I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses
It is not God’s will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy
It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honourably
Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders
Good habits formed at youth make all the difference
That which does not kill us makes us stronger
What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?
Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance
Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end
Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety
Here the ways of men divide. If you wish to strive for peace of soul and happiness, then believe; if you wish to be a disciple of truth, then inquire
The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead
Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness
Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them
You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music
Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet