An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason

Love is a great beautifier.

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.

God depends on us. 

It is through us that God is achieved.

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, 

and we see nothing but sand; 

the angels come to visit us, 

and we only know them when they are gone.

It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. 

We must feel and be affected by it.

The answers you get from literature 

depend on the questions you pose.

Zealous men are ever displaying to you the strength of their belief, 

while judicious men are showing you the grounds of it.

I have always worked better alone 

and from my own impressions.

Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain.

Where wealth accumulates, 

men decay.

In the depth of winter 

I finally learned 

that there was in me 

an invincible summer.

 Beauty is nothing but the expression 

of the fact that 

something is being loved. 

I have never yet met a healthy person 

who worried very much about his health, 

or a really good person 

who worried much about his own soul.

If you want to be successful, 

it's just this simple. 

Know what you are doing. 

Love what you are doing. 

And believe in what you are doing.

The image is more than an idea.

It is a vortex or cluster of fused ideas 

and is endowed with energy.

The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.

It takes a long time to become young.

Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly 

as when they discuss it freely.

There is still a difference between something and nothing,

but it is purely geometrical

and there is nothing behind the geometry.

Friendship is a sheltering tree.

Intelligence is the faculty of making artificial objects, 

especially tools to make tools.

The apple cannot be stuck back on the Tree of Knowledge; 

once we begin to see, 

we are doomed 

and challenged 

to seek the strength 

to see more, 

not less.

Under conditions of tyranny 

it is far easier to act than to think.

Risk! 

Risk anything! 

Care no more for the opinions of others, 

for those voices. 

Do the hardest thing on earth for you. 

Act for yourself. 

Face the truth.

I intend to remain an independent and political intelligence in my own right.

Official truths are often powerful illusions.

One learns more from listening than speaking. 

And both the wind 

and the people who continue to live close to nature 

still have much to tell us 

which we cannot hear 

within university walls.

From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.

The best way to find yourself 

is to lose yourself 

in the service of others.

Socialism is the ideal state, 

but it can never be achieved 

while man is so selfish.

Do not be misled by what you see around you, 

or be influenced by what you see. 

You live in a world which is a playground of illusion, 

full of false paths, false values and false ideals. 

But you are not part of that world.

It is by teaching that we teach ourselves, 

by relating that we observe, 

by affirming that we examine, 

by showing that we look, 

by writing that we think, 

by pumping that we draw water into the well.

Poetry may make us 

from time to time 

a little more aware 

of the deeper, unnamed feelings 

which form the substratum of our being, 

to which we rarely penetrate; 

for our lives are mostly 

a constant evasion of ourselves.

We assert that the subject is crucial 

and only that subject matter is valid 

which is tragic and timeless.

The whole secret of life 

is to be interested 

in one thing profoundly 

and in a thousand things well.

The past is but the past of a beginning.

Ignorance and superstition
ever bear a close and mathematical relation
to each other.

We promise according to our hopes 

and perform according to our fears.

Be yourself is about the worst advice you can give to some people.

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. 

I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. 

And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.

The harder the struggle, 

the more glorious the triumph. 

Self-realisation demands very great struggle.

Good taste is the worst vice ever invented.

Prometheus is reaching out for the stars 

with an empty grin on his face.

Tomorrow lurks in us, 

the latency to be all that was not achieved before.

The purpose of life 

is to obey the hidden command 

which ensures harmony among all 

and creates an ever better world. 

We are not created only to enjoy the world, 

we are created in order to evolve the cosmos.

Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, 

which I should first break through, 

and pour a torrent of light 

into our dark world.

Mere goodness can achieve little against the power of nature.

The original is unfaithful to the translation.

I have known no man of genius 

who had not to pay, 

in some affliction or defect 

either physical or spiritual, 

for what the gods had given him.