Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end. It arouses a revolt that can become fruitful.
Man is absurd by what he seeks, great by what he finds.
Waves of a serene life pass over us from time to time, like flakes of sunlight over the fields in cloudy weather.
Charity is a universal benevolence, and benevolence an habit of love.
Liberty of speech invites and provokes liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much to a man's knowledge.
Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in one's own sunshine.
Every idea I get I have to deny, that's my way of testing it.
Art repeats the eternal Ideas apprehended through pure contemplation, the essential and abiding element in all the phenomena of the world.
If only these metaphysicians would give their attention to the lengthy discursive processes which lead science to build new intuitions.
I am a lover of liberty. I will not and I cannot serve a party.
He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realise.
It is a much cleverer thing to talk nonsense than to listen to it.
Paradise on earth is where I am.
Perfect valour consists in doing without witnesses what one would be capable of doing before the world at large.
I have turned my entire attention to Greek. The first thing I shall do, as soon as the money arrives, is to buy some Greek authors; after that, I shall buy clothes.
In great affairs men show themselves as they wish to be seen; in small things they show themselves as they are.
Facts have to be discovered by observation, not by reasoning.
One always speaks badly when one has nothing to say.
Virtue is the same both for men and for women.
When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only: What are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or what you think could have beneficent social effects if it were believed; but look only and solely at what are the facts.
Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.
The imagination is nothing other than the subject transported into things.
One often makes a remark and only later sees how true it is.
On some preference esteem is based; To esteem everything is to esteem nothing.
This is the real secret of life: to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now, and instead of calling it 'work', realize that this is play.
We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.
Truth endures forever.
'Tis early practice only makes the master
Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities. As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life. Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting, strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society.
Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
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