Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I believe in the value of the book, which keeps something irreplaceable, and in the necessity of fighting to secure its respect.
The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty.
Singing and dancing alone will not advance one in the world. [Fr., Qui bien chante et bien danse fait un metier qui peu avance.]
I construct my memories with my present. I am lost, abandoned in the present. I try in vain to rejoin the past: I cannot escape.
I am finishing a biography of [Gustave] Flaubert. Because he is the opposite of what I am. One needs to rub up against argument.
To think what is true, to sense what is beautiful and to want what is good, hereby the spirit finds purpose of a life in reason.
All our science calculates with abstracted individual external marks, which do not touch the inner existence of any single thing
A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.
By object is meant some element in the complex whole that is defined in abstraction from the whole of which it is a distinction.
To savages it would seem preposterous to seek out a place where nothing but learning was going on in order that one might learn.
In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity.
Revolution is not the uprising against preexisting order, but the setting up of a new order contradictory to the traditional one
You only trust those who are absolutely like yourself, those who have signed a pledge of allegiance to this particular identity.
no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.
Whenever we propose a solution to a problem, we ought to try as hard as we can to overthrow our solution, rather than defend it.
Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.
Knowing others is wisdom; Knowing the self is enlightenment; Mastering others requires force; Mastering the self needs strength.
Without the tao, Kindness and compassion are replaced by law and justice; Faith and trust are supplanted by ritual and ceremony.
Not-knowing is true knowledge. Presuming to know is a disease. First realize that you are sick; then you can move toward health.
The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world. Through this I know the advantage of taking no action.
The highest virtue does nothing. Yet, nothing needs to be done. The lowest virtue does everything. Yet, much remains to be done.
The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be. Try to make people moral, and you lay the groundwork for vice.
Why did the ancients praise the Way? Did they not say it was because you find what you seek and are saved from your wrongdoings?
Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature. The way of nature is unchanging. Knowing constancy is insight.
Why do the people think so little of death? Because the rulers demand too much of life. Therefore the people take death lightly.
The right to have our environment protected for the benefit of present and future generations is our most important human right.
That which is usually called dotage is not the weak point of all old men, but only of such as are distinguished by their levity.
The habit of arguing in support of atheism, whether it be done from conviction or in pretense, is a wicked and impious practice.
You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long. [Lat., Mature fieri senem, si diu velis esses senex.]
The swan is not without cause dedicated to Apollo, because foreseeing his happiness in death, he dies with singing and pleasure.
Except for light, all other media come in pairs, with one acting as the "content" of the other, obscuring the operation of both.
Might is a fine thing, and useful for many purposes; for "one goes further with a handful of might than with a bagful of right."
The man who has submitted his will and purposes entirely to God, carries God with him in all his works and in all circumstances.
There is something in the soul that is so akin to God that it is one with Him... It has nothing in common with anything created.
Therefore, look only for this fishhook, and you will be happily caught. The more you are caught, the more you will be liberated.
When one by force subdues men, they do not submit to him in heart. They submit because their strength is not adequate to resist.
Jews do not have to be Christians. Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism, but too utopian, too hopeful, too unrealistic a turn.
The language of psychiatry, which is a monologue by reason about madness, could only have come into existence in such a silence.
Cruel persecutions and intolerance are not accidents, but grow out of the very essence of religion, namely, its absolute claims.
I am a hidden meaning made to defy. The grasp of words, and walk away With free will and destiny. As living, revolutionary clay.
Man wasn't made to inherit Paradise without effort. Rather, he was made to conquer Paradise, after proving his worthiness of it.
I loved thee beautiful and kind, And plighted an eternal vow; So altered are thy face and mind, t'were perjury to love thee now!
The day is not far distant when humanity will realize that biologically it is faced with a choice between suicide and adoration.
Mankind is now caught up, as though in a train of gears, at the heart of a continually accelerating vortex of self-totalisation.
The purpose of education is to give to the body and to the soul all the beauty and all the perfection of which they are capable.
There should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty nor again excessive wealth, for both are productive of great evil.
Freedom in a democracy is the glory of the state, and, therefore, in a democracy only will the freeman of nature deign to dwell.
When a person supposes that he knows, and does not know; this appears to be the great source of all the errors of the intellect.
When going to the temple to adore Divinity neither say nor do any thing in the interim pertaining to the common affairs of life.
Truth and love are two of the most powerful things in the world; and when they both go together they cannot easily be withstood.