Murder begins where self-defense ends.

Rememberest the gods, and that they wish not to be flattered, but wish all reasonable beings to be made like themselves; and... rememberest that what does the work of a fig-tree is a fig-tree, and that what does the work of a dog is a dog, and that what does the work of a bee is a bee, and that what does the work of a man is a man.

Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that some spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man.

The History of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom; a progress whose development according to the necessity of its nature, it is our business to investigate. 

Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.

I am a sick man... I am a wicked man. An unattractive man.

It is only natural that I should constantly have revolved in my mind the question of the relationship of the symbolism of the unconscious to Christianity as well as to other religions. Not only do I leave the door open for the Christian message, but I consider it of central importance for Western man. It needs, however, to be seen in a new light, in accordance with the changes wrought by the contemporary spirit.

My entire soul is a cry, and all my work the commentary on that cry.

Why don't I kill myself? If I knew exactly what keeps me from doing so, I should have no more questions to ask myself since I should have answered them all.

How can the Universe tell its own story save by making use of human speech; how convey its meanings to finite minds save by employing a thinker to declare them? So long as the story remains unspoken, unwritten, can we say it exists at all? Does not the significance of things become a story by the very process which ends in the movement of an intelligently guided pen over a sheet of paper, in the reading of printed types, in the utterance of recognised vocables; and until this process has been accomplished is not the "meaning" a mere promise or unrealized potency? Can we learn the history of the world, and of human life, otherwise than by reading, or hearing it spoken? How, then, can we receive it without the intermediation of a writer, a speaker?

Twenty-first-century society is no longer a disciplinary society, but rather an achievement society.

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.

Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?

Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.

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

A fundamental economic reconstruction, bringing with it very far-reaching changes in ways of thinking and feeling, in philosophy and art and private relations, seems absolutely necessary if industrialism is to become the servant of man instead of his master. In all this, I am at one with the Bolsheviks; politically, I criticize them only when their methods seem to involve a departure from their own ideals.

Taken as a whole, the Cross Correspondences and the Willet scripts are among the most convincing evidence that at present exists for life after death. For anyone who is prepared to devote weeks to studying them, they prove beyond all reasonable doubt that Myers, Gurney, and Sidgwick went on communicating after death.

Indulge in no wrathfulness, for a man when he indulges in wrath becomes then forgetful of his duty and good works . . . and sin and crime of every kind occur unto his mind, and until the subsiding of the wrath he is said to be just like Ahareman.

There are hardly any truths upon which we always remain agreed, and still fewer objects of pleasure which we do not change every hour, I do not know whether there is a means of giving fixed rules for adapting discourse to the inconstancy of our caprices.

Lifetime is a child at play, moving pieces in a game.

If you are to be kept right, you must possess either good friends or red-hot enemies. The one will warn you, the other will expose you.

An armed insurrection ... would hinder and bring into disrepute this spiritual insurrection.

The force of the word World, as commonly used, of itself falls in with us. For no one will attribute accidents to the World as parts, but as determinations, states; hence the so-called world of the ego, unrestrained by the single substance and its accidents, is not very appositely called a World, unless, perhaps, an imaginary one.

I don't really know what they mean by "intellectuals," all the people who describe, denounce, or scold them. I do know, on the other hand, what I have committed myself to, as an intellectual, which is to say, after all, a cerebro-spinal individual: to having a brain as supple as possible and a spinal column that's as straight as necessary.

Power turns pure being into a having.

The result of your fifty or sixty years of religious reading in the four words: 'Be just and good,' is that in which all our enquiries must end.

Every artist was first an amateur.

Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie.

There's a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire - poison and antidote.

The operations of understanding thus divide the world into numberless polarities, and Hegel uses the expression 'isolated reflection' (isolierte Reflection) to characterize the manner in which understanding forms and connects its polar concepts. The rise and spread of this kind of thinking Hegel connects with the origin and prevalence of crucial relationships in human life. The antagonisms of 'isolated reflections' express real antagonisms. .... Isolation and opposition are not, however, the final state of affairs. The world must not remain a complex of fixed disparates. The unity that underlies the antagonisms must be grasped and realized by reason, which has the task of reconciling the opposites and 'sublimating' them in a true unity.

Whenever one tries to suppress doubt, there is tyranny.

"Education to personality" has become a pedagogical ideal that turns its back upon the standardized-the collective and normal-human being. It thus fittingly recognizes the historical fact that the great, liberating deeds of world history have come from leading personalities and never from the inert mass that is secondary at all times and needs a demagogue if it is to move at all. The paean of the Italian nation is addressed to the personality of the Duce, and dirges of other nations lament the absence of great leaders.

Let me give two cautions. 1) The one is, that you keep them to the practice of what you would have grow into a habit with them, by kind words, and gentle admonitions, rather as minding them of what they forget, than by harsh rebukes and chiding, as if they were wilfully guilty. 2) Another thing you are to take care of, is, not to endeavour to settle too many habits at once, lest by variety you confound them, and so perfect none. When constant custom has made any one thing easy and natural to 'em, and they practice it without reflection, you may then go on to another.

There is an inconvenience which attends all abstruse reasoning. That it may silence, without convincing an antagonist, and requires the same intense study to make us sensible of its force, that was at first requisite for its invention. When we leave our closet, and engage in the common affairs of life, its conclusions seem to vanish, like the phantoms of the night on the appearance of the morning; and 'tis difficult for us to retain even that conviction, which we had attain'd with difficulty.

We think in generalities, but we live in detail. To make the past live, we must perceive it in detail in addition to thinking of it in generalities.

What a queer work the Bible is. ...Some texts are very funny. Deut. XXIV, 5: "When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business: but he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken." I should never have guessed "cheer up" was a Biblical expression. Here is another really inspiring text: "Cursed be he that lieth with his mother-in-law. And all the people shall say, Amen." St Paul on marriage: "I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn." This has remained the doctrine of the Church to this day. It is clear that the Divine purpose in the text "it is better to marry than to burn" is to make us all feel how very dreadful the torments of Hell must be.

There are people who possess not so much genius as a certain talent for perceiving the desires of the century, or even of the decade, before it has done so itself.

The introduction of free competition is thus public declaration that from now on the members of society are unequal only to the extent that their capitals are unequal, that capital is the decisive power, and that therefore the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, have become the first class in society. Free competition is necessary for the establishment of big industry, because it is the only condition of society in which big industry can make its way.

Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.

Religious law makes it illegal for the ignorant to drink wine, but intelligence makes it legal for the intellectual.

To eat is to appropriate by destruction.

All words at every level of prose and poetry and all devices of language and speech derive their meaning from figure / ground relation.

So long as it is not possible to produce so much that there is enough for all, with more left over for expanding the social capital and extending the forces of production - so long as this is not possible, there must always be a ruling class directing the use of society's productive forces, and a poor, oppressed class. How these classes are constituted depends on the stage of development.

He has begun by supposing that light has a constant velocity... the same in all directions. This... could never be verified directly by experiment... The postulate... resembling the principle of sufficient reason... furnishes us with a new rule for the investigation of simultaneity.

I am a perfect stranger to France, which I have never seen, and I expect nothing from her king, whom I shall never know.

Remember that all is opinion.

And thus the soul pities God and feels itself pitied by him; loves Him and feels loved by Him, sheltering its misery in the bosom of the eternal and infinite misery, which, in eternalizing itself and infinitizing itself, is the supreme happiness itself.