If honour were profitable, 

everybody would be honourable.

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.

Think you're escaping and run into yourself. 

Longest way round is the shortest way home.

Whatever the immediate gains and losses, 

the dangers to our safety 

arising from political suppression 

are always greater than 

the dangers to the safety 

resulting from political freedom. 

Suppression is always foolish. 

Freedom is always wise.

Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.

One of the secrets of life is 

that all that is really worth the doing 

is what we do for others.

No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man; 

no other idea has so fruitfully stimulated his intellect; 

yet no other concept stands in greater need of clarification 

than that of the infinite.

The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.

They who dream by day 

are cognisant of many things 

which escape those 

who dream only by night.

Ideas govern the world, 

or throw it into chaos.

Ultimately, 

we actually all belong to only one tribe, 

to Earthlings.

The greater the obstacle, 

the more glory in overcoming it.

Heredity provides for the modification of its own machinery.

Believe that life is worth living 

and your belief will help create the fact.

Nothing is more beautiful than the loveliness of the woods before sunrise.

One's life has value 

so long as one attributes value to the life of others, 

by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.

A wise man gets more use from his enemies 

than a fool from his friends.

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, 

so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

The man of science, 

like the man of letters, 

is too apt to view mankind 

only in the abstract, 

selecting in his consideration 

only a single side 

of our complex and many-sided being.

The individual has always had to struggle 

to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. 

If you try it, 

you will be lonely often, 

and sometimes frightened. 

But no price is too high to pay 

for the privilege of owning yourself.

Where ignorance is bliss, 

'Tis folly to be wise.

Perhaps it would be better for science, 

that all criticism should be avowed.

Plato is my friend; 

Aristotle is my friend, 

but my greatest friend is truth.

Not a having and a resting, 

but a growing and becoming, 

is the character of perfection 

as culture conceives it.

Similarly, thought is a system. 

That system not only includes thought and feelings, 

but it includes the state of the body; 

it includes the whole of society — 

as thought is passing back and forth between people 

in a process by which thought evolved from ancient times.

Friendship is almost always 

the union of a part of one mind 

with the part of another; 

people are friends in spots.

To sit in the shade on a fine day 

and look upon verdure 

is the most perfect refreshment.

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.

The sole substitute for an experience which we have not ourselves lived through is art and literature.

None can love freedom heartily, but good men; 

the rest love not freedom, but licence.

Expose yourself to your deepest fear;

after that, fear has no power, 

and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. 

You are free.

Go as far as you can see; 

when you get there 

you'll be able to see farther.

Life is like music; 

it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, 

not by rule.

There is nothing constant in this world but inconsistency.

If we have not quiet in our minds, 

outward comfort will do no more for us 

than a golden slipper on a gouty foot.

The eye altering, 

alters all.

Sciences may be learned by rote, 

but wisdom not.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

Falsehood is easy, 

truth so difficult.

 

It is dangerous to be right in matters 

on which the established authorities are wrong.

My fate has been 

that what I undertook 

was fully understood 

only after the fact.

Virtues, 

like essences, 

lose their fragrance 

when exposed.

Happiness does not lie in happiness, 

but in the achievement of it.

Thoughts create a new heaven, 

a new firmament, 

a new source of energy, 

from which new arts flow.

Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.

With enough courage, 

you can do without a reputation.

It does not matter how badly you paint 

so long as you don't paint badly like other people.

Everybody is ignorant, 

only on different subjects.

 

My imagination is a monastery 

and I am its monk.

The surest way to fail 

is not to determine to succeed.