Existence precedes and rules essence.

There is no birth of consciousness without pain.

Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in ‚renouncing‘ one’s own self, by which I mean making up one’s mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being ‚happy‘ or ‚unhappy‘ in the usual meaning of the words.

The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.

Every living being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe. Though seemingly affected only by its immediate surrounding, the sphere of external influence extends to infinite distance.

Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.

Ordinary morality is innate in my view.

The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He exists.

There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.

Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a Mind.

Nature is not human hearted.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.

It’s possible – you can never know – that the universe exists only for me. If so, it’s sure going well for me, I must admit.

Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.

I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head. But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute.

Honor thy error as a hidden intention.

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.

There are only two things. Truth and lies. Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie.

That God does not exist, I cannot deny, That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget.

Somewhere, everywhere, now hidden, now apparent in what ever is written down, is the form of a human being. If we seek to know him, are we idly occupied?

I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.

I think if we didn’t contradict ourselves, it would be awfully boring. It would be tedious to be alive.

Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved.

Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.

Religion is the frozen thought of man out of which they build temples.

Our philosophy is that we care about people first.

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.

More gold has been mined from the thoughts of men than has been taken from the earth.

To free a person from error is to give, and not to take away.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

As far as I’m concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.

Better to have beasts that let themselves be killed than men who run away.

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

In order to exist, man must rebel, but rebellion must respect the limits that it discovers in itself – limits where minds meet, and in meeting, begin to exist.

That’s the shock: All cliches are true. The years really do speed by. Life really is as short as they tell you it is. And there really is a God – so do I buy that one? If all the other cliches are true… Hell, don’t pose me that one.

There is but an inch of difference between a cushioned chamber and a padded cell.

Use, do not abuse… neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

Justice is a temporary thing that must at last come to an end; but the conscience is eternal and will never die.

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.

It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are… than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.

The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.

If some years were added to my life, I would give fifty to the study of the Yi, and then I might come to be without great faults.

Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it.

When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.

Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.

Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.

There is in general good reason to suppose that in several respects the gods could all benefit from instruction by us human beings. We humans are – more humane.

An overflow of good converts to bad.