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

Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action.

We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.

To correct a natural indifference I was placed half-way between misery and the sun. Misery kept me from believing that all was well under the sun, and the sun taught me that history wasn’t everything.

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.

To me, if life boils down to one thing, it’s movement. To live is to keep moving.

There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.

Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.

What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature are shot down wholesale.

There is no room for military people, including our veterans, to see themselves as victims, even if so many of our countrymen are prone to relish that role.

You can’t have a rigid view that all new taxes are evil.

I’m seeing the world partially through the eyes of a kid. Not all the time. There’s no black and white to it. But sometimes I’m seeing it like I’m 4.

The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time.

The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences.

Well, the future for me is already a thing of the past.

It was a favorite expression of Theophrastus that time was the most valuable thing that a man could spend.

From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.

The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.

The side of fairytales I don’t like is that they always have happy endings, that there’s just good and evil, and things are perfect. But life is a little more complicated, and that’s what I try to teach my kids.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.

You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

In praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame.

What we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.

Those parts of history that would undermine the vision of the Left – which prevails in our education system from elementary school to postgraduate study – are not likely to get much attention.

For me, money is not my definition of success. Inspiring people is a definition of success.

Sooner or later we’re all someone’s dog.

Whenever a fellow tells me he’s bipartisan, I know he’s going to vote against me.

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

One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people’s minds.

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.

Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.

No group and no government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.

To cut short the question of the law of retaliation, we must note that even in its primitive form it can operate only between two individuals of whom one is absolutely innocent, and the other absolutely guilty. The victim, to be sure, is innocent. But can the society that is supposed to represent the victim lay claim to innocence?

Things have never been more like the way they are today in history.

Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.

For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

Without stirring abroad, One can know the whole world; Without looking out of the window One can see the way of heaven. The further one goes The less one knows.

The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell.

The absurd depends as much on man as on the world. For the moment, it is all that links them together.

For a war to be just three conditions are necessary – public authority, just cause, right motive.

Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.

I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one-way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfil our destiny, but our fate is sealed.

What people call impartiality may simply mean indifference, and what people call partiality may simply mean mental activity.

Each part of my life provided respite from the other and gave me a sense of proportion that classmates trained only on law studies lacked.

Things in themselves have no life in them. A car can’t comfort or encourage you. A house means nothing if there’s no life and love inside.

There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He.

Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.

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.

I was brought up differently than the average American child because the average child is brought up expecting to be happy.

Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?

There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.