Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.
A hungry stomach cannot hear.
The worst fate of a poet is to be admired without being understood.
Take courage from this despair.
In the arena of human life the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action.
Perhaps men entertain as many truths as falsehoods; have as many good qualities as bad; feel as many pleasures as pains. But we like to malign human nature, in order to try to raise ourselves above the common level, and to acquire for ourselves the respect of which we strive to rob it. We are so presumptuous, that we imagine we can separate our own personal interests from those of humanity in general, and malign the human race without implicating ourselves. This absurd vanity has filled books of philosophy with diatribes against human nature. Man is in disgrace with all thinkers, who rival one another in accusing him of depravity. But perhaps he may be about to rise again and recover all his virtues; nothing is permanent, and philosophy, like clothes, music, architecture, &c, has its vogues.
The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.
Silence is the safest course for any man to adopt who distrusts himself.
Consistency is the foundation of virtue.
States are doomed when they are unable to distinguish good men from bad.
When one speaks of awakening, it means de-hypnotisation, coming to your senses, but of course to do that you have to go out of your mind.
To a Friend of Light If you want to spare your eyes and your mind, follow the sun from the shadows behind.
He who steps upon his misery stands higher.
Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.
Pleasure is the beginning and end of the blessed life.
A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other.
Time flies and draws us with it. The moment in which I am speaking is already far from me.
An uneasy conscience is a hair in the mouth.
One does not exist without doing something,
Skill to do comes of doing; knowledge comes by eyes always open, and working hands; and there is no knowledge that is not power.
It is through their completeness that souls are happy.
All concepts, even those which are closest to experience, are from the point of view of logic freely chosen conventions.
Bad men, when they escape, do not keep the oaths which they make in time of stress.
We have to watch out for the traps of words.
All men are not capable of great things, but all are sensitive to great things.
There is a higher court than courts of justice, and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.
O Lord, that lends me life, Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!
When we make music we don't do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point.
The supreme paradox of all thought is the attempt to discover something that thought cannot think.
The life without festival is a long road without an inn.
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