Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.

I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm.

Pragmatism, on the other hand, asks its usual question. "Grant an idea or belief to be true," it says, "what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth's cash-value in experiential terms?"

So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination. ..And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do no bring forth in the agitation.

A little river seems to him, who has never seen a larger river, a mighty stream; and so with other things-a tree, a man-anything appears greatest to him that never knew a greater.

For legislators make the citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of every legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark, and it is in this that a good constitution differs from a bad one.

I disbelieve in specialization and... experts. ...[P]aying too much respect to the specialist ...[is] destroying the commonwealth of learning, the rationalist tradition, and science ...

His Mohammed, as has been said, commands that ruling is to be done by the sword, and in his Koran the sword is the commonest and noblest work. Thus the Turk is, in truth, nothing but a murderer or highwayman, as his deeds show before men's eyes.

Intense, long, certain, speedy, fruitful, pure-Such marks in pleasures and in pains endure.Such pleasures seek if private be thy end:If it be public, wide let them extend.Such pains avoid, whichever be thy view:If pains must come, let them extend to few.

Prosperity, both for individuals and for states, means possessions; and possessions mean burdens and harness and slavery; and slavery for the mind, too, because it is not only the rich man's time that is pre-empted, but his affections, his judgement, and the range of his thoughts.

(On the Trinitarian indwelling personally experienced by Saint Augustine) But what is it that I love in loving You? Not corporeal beauty, nor the splendour of time, nor the radiance of the light, so pleasant to our eyes, nor the sweet melodies of songs of all kinds, nor the fragrant smell of flowers, and ointments, and spices, not manna and honey, not limbs pleasant to the embracements of flesh. I love not these things when I love my God; and yet I love a certain kind of light, and sound, and fragrance, and food, and embracement in loving my God, who is the light, sound, fragrance, food, and embracement of my inner man — where that light shines unto my soul which no place can contain, where that sounds which time snatches not away, where there is a fragrance which no breeze disperses, where there is a food which no eating can diminish, and where that clings which no satiety can sunder. This is what I love, when I love my God.

In so far as words are not used obviously to calculate technically relevant probabilities or for other practical purposes, ... they are in danger of being suspect as sales talk of some kind.

The beginning of religion, more precisely its content, is the concept of religion itself, that God is the absolute truth, the truth of all things, and subjectively that religion alone is the absolutely true knowledge.

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture.

The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.

When you are reading God's Word, it is not the obscure passages that bind you but what you understand, and with that you comply at once. If you understood only one single passage in all of Holy Scripture, well, then you must do that first of all, but you do not first have to sit down and ponder the obscure passages.

Envy has been, is, and shall be, the destruction of many. What is there, that Envy hath not defamed, or Malice left undefiled? Truly, no good thing.

For my own part, not believing in universal selfishness, I have no difficulty in admitting that Communism would even now be practicable among the elite of mankind, and may become so among the rest.

If in Nietzsche's thinking the prior tradition of Western thought is gathered and completed in a decisive respect, then the confrontation with Nietzsche becomes one with all Western thought hitherto.

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.

Isolation is the worst possible counselor.

Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves. If we do not understand the language in which they are written, we miss a great deal of what we know and tell ourselves in those hours when we are not busy manipulating the outside world.

Even the most elevated psychological understanding is not a loving understanding.

Setting the mind to remember... involves a continual minimal irradiation of excitement into paths which lead thereto... the continued presence of the thing in the 'fringe' of our consciousness. Letting the thing go involves withdrawal of the irradiation, unconsciousness of the thing, and... obliteration of the paths.

The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education.

I entered the [Communist] Party because its cause was just and I will leave it when it ceases to be just.

Wealth and poverty do not lie in a person's estate, but in their souls.

And neither ought we to be surprised by the affirmation that the consciousness of the Universe is composed and integrated by the consciousnesses of the beings which form the Universe, by the consciousnesses of all the beings that exist, and that nevertheless it remains a personal consciousness distinct from those which compose it. Only thus is it possible to understand how in God we live, move, and have our being.

To get to know a truth properly, one must polemicize it.

The poor, by thinking unceasingly of money, reach the point of losing the spiritual advantages of non-possession, thereby sinking as low as the rich.

Catherine: Why commit Evil? Goetz: Because Good has already been done. Catherine: Who has done it? Goetz: God the Father. I, on the other hand, am improvising.

Nor is prescription of government formed upon blind unmeaning prejudices-for man is a most unwise, and a most wise, being. The individual is foolish. The multitude, for the moment, is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise, and when time is given to it, as a species it almost always acts right.

Surprisingly, Berdyaev was able to write, lecture and publish for five years after the October Revolution of 1917. He was once detained and interviewed by the fearsome head of the Cheka, Felix Dzerzhinsky. Although he was released, the Bolsheviks gradually realized that Berdyaev was unassimilable to their cause and gave him a choice, along with a group of other intellectuals, of exile or execution. Reluctantly, Berdyaev chose exile to Berlin. He was never again to return to Russia.

The bourgeoisie has gained a monopoly of all means of existence in the broadest sense of the word. What the proletarian needs, he can obtain only from this bourgeoisie, which is protected in its monopoly by the power of the state. The proletarian is, therefore, in law and in fact, the slave of the bourgeoisie, which can decree his life or death.

To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.

Chance seldom interferes with the wise man; his greatest and highest interests have been, are, and will be, directed by reason throughout his whole life.

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.

The free being with absolute freedom proposes to itself certain ends. It wills because it wills, and the willing of an object is itself the last ground of such willing. Thus we have previously determined a free being, and any other determination would destroy the conception of an Ego, or of a free being. Now, if it could be so arranged that the willing of an unlawful end would necessarily - in virtue of an always effective law - result in the very reverse of that end, then the unlawful will would always ANNIHILATE ITSELF. A person could not will that end for the very reason because he did will it; his unlawful will would become the ground of its own annihilation, as the will is indeed always its own last ground.

Philosophy is the science of truth.

You must do nothing before him, which you would not have him imitate. If any thing escape you, which you would have pass as a fault in him, he will be sure to shelter himself under your example, and shelter himself so as that it will not be easy to come at him, to correct it in him the right way.

Thus, where'er the drift of hazardSeems most unrestrained to flow,Chance herself is reined and bitted,And the curb of law doth know.

Though you give no countenance to the complaints of the querulous, yet take care to curb the insolence and ill nature of the injurious. When you observe it yourself, reprove it before the injur'd party: but if the complaint be of something really worth your notice, and prevention another time, then reprove the offender by himself alone, out of sight of him who complain'd and make him go and ask pardon, and make reparation; which ooming thus, as it were from himself, will be the more cheerfully performed, and more kindly receiv'd, the love strenghten'd between them, and a custom of civility grow familiar amongst your children.

Neither the few nor the many have a right to act merely by their will, in any matter connected with duty, trust, engagement, or obligation.

Rationality requires a complete knowledge and anticipation of the consequences that will follow on each choice. In fact, knowledge of consequences is always fragmentary.

Each time I fail to think about death, I have the impression of cheating, of deceiving someone in me.

For a truly religious man nothing is tragic.

To throw oneself into strange teachings is quite dangerous.