Brave men were living before Agamemnon. 

O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.

It is clearly absurd to say that if you go on adding atoms together until they have fused into a complex molecule, that molecule will become capable of self-reproduction. It is like saying that a skyscraper is more capable of reproduction than a bungalow. And suppose life did come into being through some accidental interaction of molecules, sun and cosmic rays; why should it not be content to rest passively? Why should it have been possessed of a desire to persist and evolve?

The self-evident truth which makes men invincible is that inalienably they are inviolate persons.

Since therefore, as well those degrees of heat that are not painful, as those that are, can exist in a thinking substance; may we not conclude that external bodies are absolutely incapable of any degree of heat whatsoever?

We are fulfilled only when we aspire to nothing, when we are impregnated by that nothing to the point of intoxication.

Man cannot do without beauty, and this is what our era pretends to want to disregard. It steels itself to attain the absolute and authority; it wants to transfigure the world before having exhausted it, to set it to rights before having understood it. Whatever it may say, our era is deserting this world.

'Our kingdom go' is the necessary and unavoidable corollary of 'Thy kingdom come.' For the more there is of self, the less there is of God.

I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.

Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found.

The Reformation was a popular uprising, and for a century and a half drenched Europe in blood. The beginnings of the Scientific movement were confined to a minority among the intellectual elite.... The worst that happened to men of science was that Galileo suffered an honorable detention and a mild reproof, before dying peacefully in his bed. The way in which the persecution of Galileo has been remembered is a tribute to the quiet commencement of the most intimate change in outlook which the human race had yet encountered. Since a babe was born in a manger, it may be doubted whether so great a thing has happened with so little stir.

To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.

With all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens,-A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

In his arms, my lady lay asleep, wrapped in a veil. He woke her then and trembling and obedient. She ate that burning heart out of his hand; Weeping I saw him then depart from me.

When common words are appropriated as technical terms, this must be done so that they are not ambiguous in their application.

If there was a God of sorrow, he would grow black heavy wings, to soar not for the skies, but for inferno.

Ritual society is a society of rules. It is based not on virtues but on a passion for rules.

Indian thought has greatly attracted me since in my youth I first became acquainted with it through reading the works of Arthur Schopenhauer. From the very beginning I was convinced that all thought is really concerned with the great problem of how man can attain to spiritual union with infinite Being. My attention was drawn to Indian thought because it is busied with this problem and because by its nature it is mysticism. What I liked about it also was that Indian ethics are concerned with the behaviour of man to all living beings and not merely with his attitude to his fellow-man and to human society.

Life inspires more dread than death - it is life which is the great unknown.

Secrecy is an instrument of conspiracy; it ought not, therefore, to be the system of a regular government.

We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.

Life creates itself in delirium and is undone in ennui.

Error is the price we pay for progress.

How many women thus waste life away the prey of discontent, who might have practised as physicians, regulated a farm, managed a shop, and stood erect, supported by their own industry, instead of hanging their heads surcharged with the dew of sensibility, that consumes the beauty to which it at first gave lustre.

There is no practice of nonviolence that does not negotiate fundamental ethical and political ambiguities, which means that "nonviolence" is not an absolute principle, but the name of an ongoing struggle.

In a traditional reading eating the apple was the original sin; but, as Gnostics understood the story, the two primordial humans were right to eat the apple. The God that commanded them not to do so was not the true God but only a demiurge, a tyrannical underling exulting in its power, while the serpent came to free them from slavery. True, when they ate the apple Adam and Eve fell from grace. This was indeed the Fall of Man - a fall into the dim world of everyday consciousness. But the Fall need not be final. Having eaten its fill from the Tree of Knowledge, humankind can then rise into a state of conscious innocence. When this happens, Herr C. declares, it will be 'the final chapter in the history of the world'.

A corporation, essentially, is a pile of money to which a number of persons have sold their moral allegiance. Unlike a person, a corporation does not age. It does not arrive, as most persons finally do, at a realization of the shortness and smallness of human lives; it does not come to see the future as the lifetime of the children and grandchildren of anybody in particular.

Money is the password, and all doors, which are closed to the man of lesser means, fly open to those whom Plutus favors. The invention of money, which has no other usefulness (or at least it should not have any) except for the commercial exchange of the products of man's industry, now serves all that is physically good among men. Especially after money was represented by metal, it has produced avarice which, finally, without indulgence, but by its mere possession, and even with the resolution (of the stingy) not to spend it, still contains a power which people believe can sufficiently compensate for the lack of any other power.

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.

Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world. No hope so bright but is the beginning of its own fulfillment. 

It is manifest that every soul has a certain continuity with the soul of the Universe, so that it must be understood to exist and to be included not only there where it liveth and feeleth, but it is also by its essence and substance diffused throughout immensity. The power of each soul is itself somehow present afar in the Universe. It is not mixed, yet is there in some presence.

Whoever complains about the death of anyone, is complaining that he was a man. Everyone is bound by the same terms: he who is privileged to be born, is destined to die.

At present they philosophers seem to be in a very lamentable condition, and such as the poets have given us but a faint notion of in their descriptions of the punishment of Sisyphus and Tantalus. For what can be imagin'd more tormenting, than to seek with eagerness, what for ever flies us; and seek for it in a place, where 'tis impossible it can ever exist?

If the importance of science does not lie in its constituting the whole of human knowledge, even less does it lie, in my view, in its technological applications. Science at the best is a way of coming to know, and hopefully a way of acquiring some reverence for, the wonders of nature. The philosophical study of science, at the best, has always been a way of coming to understand both some of the nature and some of the limitations of human reason. These seem to me to be sufficient grounds for taking science and philosophy of science seriously; they do not justify science worship.

The young are really the heirs to a generation of incompetence.

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 ...

The limits of this strategy were evident as the century drew to a close.

The life of Berdyaev spans the momentous events of the first half of the twentieth century in Europe. He was no ivory tower philosopher but was intimately affected by these events throughout his life and drew his inspirations from them regarding the nature of the human condition. His writings bear the imprint of the catastrophic situations within which he was destined to live.

There is no man so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who are pleased with what is going to happen. Suppose that he was a good and a wise man, will there not be at least some one to say to himself, Let us at last breathe freely, being relieved from this schoolmaster? It is true that he was harsh to none of us, but I perceive that he tacitly condemns us.-This is what is said of a good man. But in our own case how many other things are there for which there are many who wish to get rid of us.

We are afraid of the enormity of the possible.

From the union of power and money, from the union of power and secrecy, from the union of government and science, from the union of government and art, from the union of science and money, from the union of ambition and ignorance, from the union of genius and war, from the union of outer space and inner vacuity, the Mad Farmer walks quietly away.

The weakness of little children's limbs is innocent, not their souls.

Man's biological weakness is the condition of human culture.

If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this that disturbs thee, but thy own judgment about it. And it is in thy power to wipe out this judgment now.

Whatever you can lose, you should reckon of no account.