God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives; who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?

Sometimes there are no good guys. There are no bad guys. It seems like everybody is in the middle.

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

Only a man’s character is the real criterion of worth.

My theory is 98 percent of all human endeavor is killing time.

What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.

I glory in the distinguishing grace of God and will not, by the grace of God, step one inch from my principles or think of adhering to the present fashionable sort of religion.

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.

We’re all of us guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.

Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.

Man – a being in search of meaning.

A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will’s freedom after it.

The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

Honor thy error as a hidden intention.

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

If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.

Sincere words are not fine; fine words are not sincere.

My philosophy is: It’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me.

All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice.

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?

Don’t look forward to the day you stop suffering, because when it comes you’ll know you’re dead.

Evil is whatever distracts.

I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think.

A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.

At first when I heard about climate change, I was a climate denier. I didn’t think it was happening. Because if there really was an existential crisis like that, that would threaten our civilisation, we wouldn’t be focusing on anything else. That would be our first priority. So I didn’t understand how that added up.

He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.

I don’t know which will go first – rock ‚n‘ roll or Christianity.

Force always attracts men of low morality.

Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.

Anybody can be specific and obvious. That’s always been the easy way. It’s not that it’s so difficult to be unspecific and less obvious; it’s just that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, to be specific and obvious about.

Non-violence is the article of faith.

I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

To the man who reads ‚Scouting for Boys‘ superficially, there is a disappointing lack of religion in the book. But to him who tries it in practice, the basic religion underlying it soon becomes apparent.

No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience.

Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.

It is right to give every man his due.

The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between.

Life is wasted on the living.

Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart.

Surely our job while we’re here on Earth is to learn about the world, not to create parallel universes.

A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.

Seemingly, man has learned to live without God, preoccupied and indifferent toward Him and concerned only about material security and pleasure.

Man the individual consoles himself for his passing with the thought of the offspring or the works which he leaves behind.

Thought once awakened does not again slumber; unfolds itself into a System of Thought; grows, in man after man, generation after generation, – till its full stature is reached, and such System of Thought can grow no farther, but must give place to another.

Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.

I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

I believe in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.

All these walls that keep us from loving each other as one family or one race – racism, religion, where we grew up, whatever, class, socioeconomic – what makes us be so selfish and prideful, what keeps us from wanting to help the next man, what makes us be so focused on a personal legacy as opposed to the entire legacy of a race.