Music is the poor man's Parnassus.

Men are not allowed to think freely about chemistry and biology: why should they be allowed to think freely about political philosophy?

Political ideals must be based upon ideals for the individual life. The aim of politics should be to make the lives of individuals as good as possible.

Societies are composed of individuals and are good only insofar as they help individuals to realize their potentialities and to lead a happy and creative life.

Only charity admitteth no excess. For so we see, aspiring to be like God in power, the angels transgressed and fell.

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

To one who asked what was the proper time for lunch, he said, "If a rich man, when you will; if a poor man, when you can." Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 40

The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.

Man reaches the highest point of his knowledge about God when he knows that he knows him not, inasmuch as he knows that that which is God transcends whatsoever he conceives of him.

In a social order dominated by capitalist production even the non-capitalist producer is gripped by capitalist conceptions.

For the world to become philosophic amounts to philosophy's becoming world-order reality; and it means that philosophy, at the same time that it is realized, disappears.

Every habit and faculty is confirmed and strengthened by the corresponding actions, that of walking by walking, that of running by running.

Born for success he seemed, With grace to win, with heart to hold, With shining gifts that took all eyes.

I joke sometimes to the effect that when I approach a part of a book where I must explain something I don't understand, I just type faster and faster and faster. Then, when I get to the part I don't understand, sheer inertia pushes me through. That's not literally true, of course, but there's something to it psychologically.

Certainly it is correct to say: Conscience is the voice of God.

The Clergy is the greatest hindrance to faith.

The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security is so powerful a principle that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often incumbers its operations; though the effect of these obstructions is always more or less either to encroach upon its freedom, or to diminish its security.

The universe comprises all being in a totality; for nothing that exists is outside or beyond infinite being, as the latter has no outside or beyond.

The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game.

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

The papers were always talking about the debt owed to society. According to them, it had to be paid. But that doesn't speak to the imagination. What really counted was the possibility of escape, a leap to freedom, out of the implacable ritual, a wild run for it that would give whatever chance for hope there was. Of course, hope meant being cut down on some street corner, as you ran like mad, by a random bullet. But when I really thought it through, nothing was going to allow me such a luxury. Everything was against it; I would just be caught up in the machinery again.

Furthermore, when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power.

Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that age appears to be best in four things - old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

Nor is it the irrationality of the form which is taken as characteristic. On the contrary, one overlooks the irrational.

You ask particularly after my health. I suppose that I have not many months to live; but, of course, I know nothing about it. I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.

Nature does not do anything in vain.

Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world. What is it, this egg, before the seed is introduced into it? An insentient mass. And after the seed has been introduced to into it? What is it then? An insentient mass. For what is the seed itself other than a crude and inanimate fluid? How is this mass to make a transition to a different structure, to sentience, to life? Through heat. And what will produce that heat in it? Motion. "Conversation Between D'Alembert and Diderot", as quoted in Selected Writings (1966) edited by Lester G. Crocker, and The Enlightenment and the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture (2004) by Louis K Dupré, p. 30 Variant translation: See this egg. It is with this that all the schools of theology and all the temples of the earth are to be overturned.

It's funny the respectable names you can give to superstition.

When God chooses to let himself be born in lowliness, when he who holds all possibilities in his hand takes upon himself the form of a lowly servant, when he goes about defenseless and lets people do with him what they will, he surely must know well enough what he is doing and why he wills it; but for all that it is he who has people in his power and not they who have power over him-so history ought not play Mr. Malapert by this wanting to make manifest who he was.

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.

Either Man will abolish war, or war will abolish Man.

He was extremely important to his contemporaries, who wanted nothing more than to see in him the Expected One; they wanted almost to press it upon him and and to force him into the role - but that he then refuses to be that!

You are a little soul carrying a corpse around, as Epictetus used to say.

Lift up your eyes and look at the cloud and the light within it and the stars surrounding it. The star that leads the way is your star. Jesus to Judas, Judas. See "Jesus Laughed" and "Judas Saves: Why the lost gospel makes sense".

If anyone can be considered the greatest writer who ever lived, it is Shakespeare.

Solvency is maintained by means of the national debt, on the principle, "If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?"

'At my age one's got to be sincere. Lying's too much effort.'

Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil's alphabet- the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies.

Nevertheless, the ultimate business of philosophy is to preserve the force of the most elemental words in which Dasein expresses itself, and to keep the common understanding from levelling them off to that unintelligibility which functions in turn as a source of pseudo-problems.

This actual world of what is knowable, in which we are and which is in us, remains both the material and the limit of our consideration.

Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me. But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. 26:55-56 (KJV)

It seldom happens, however, that a great proprietor is a great improver.

The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other men, a pledge of sanity, and protection from those perverse tendencies and gloomy insanities in which fine intellects sometimes lose themselves. A rogue alive to the ludicrous is still convertible.

It is strange that men will talk of miracles, revelations, inspiration, and the like, as things past, while love remains.

Who then to frail mortality shall trust But limns the water, or but writes in dust.

No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.

His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.

Our elucidations of the preliminary concept of phenomenology show that its essential character does not consist in its actuality as a philosophical "movement." Higher than actuality stands possibility. We can understand phenomenology solely by seizing upon it as a possibility.

Therefore let every Christian, yea, let the whole body of Christ everywhere cry out, despite the tribulations it endures, despite temptations and countless scandals, saying: "Preserve my soul, for I am holy; save Thy servant, O my God, that trusteth in thee" (Ps. 85:2) No, this holy one is not proud, for he trusts in God.

Christ ought to be preached with this goal in mind - that we might be moved to faith in him so that he is not just a distant historical figure but actually Christ for you and me.