Those among them that have...

Those among them that have not received our religion do not fright any from it, and use none ill that goes over to it, so that all the while I was there one man was only punished on this occasion. He being newly baptised did, notwithstanding all that we could say to the contrary, dispute publicly concerning the Christian religion, with more zeal than discretion, and with so much heat, that he not only preferred our worship to theirs, but condemned all their rites as profane, and cried out against all that adhered to them as impious and sacrilegious persons, that were to be damned to everlasting burnings. Upon his having frequently preached in this manner he was seized, and after trial he was condemned to banishment, not for having disparaged their religion, but for his inflaming the people to sedition; for this is one of their most ancient laws, that no man ought to be punished for his religion.

The hope of the coming...

The hope of the coming of a new Christian era in our civilization is to my mind a hope for a distant future, a very distant future.

He who fears death either...

He who fears death either fears to lose all sensation or fears new sensations. In reality, you will either feel nothing at all, and therefore nothing evil, or else, if you can feel any sensations, you will be a new creature, and so will not have ceased to have life.

Compared to the refined culture...

Compared to the refined culture of sclerotic forms and frames, which mask everything, the lyrical mode is utterly barbarian in its expression. Its value resides precisely in its savage quality: it is only blood, sincerity, and fire.

Not only was Thebes built...

Not only was Thebes built by the music of an Orpheus; but without the music of some inspired Orpheus was no city ever built, no work that man glories-in ever done.

I don't know whether this...

I don't know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I cannot know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch, what resists me — that I understand. And these two certainties — my appetite for the absolute and for unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle — I also know that I cannot reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying, without bringing in a hope I lack and which means nothing within the limits of my conditions?

Now God defend: what will...

Now God defend: what will become of me? I have neither consulted the stars nor their urinals, the Almanacks. A fine fellow to neglect the prophets who are read in England every day. They shall pardon me for this oversight. There is a mystery in their profession they have not so much as heard of... a new heaven fancied on the old earth. Here the twelve apostles have surprised the zodiac and all the saints are ranged on their North and South sides. It were a pretty vanity to preach when St Paul is ascendant, and would not a papist smile to have his pope elected under St Peter? Reader, if I studied these things I would think myself worse employed than the Roman Chaucer was in his Troilus (To the reader)

There is no room in...

There is no room in the universe for the least contempt or pride; but only for a gentle and a reverent heart.

Logical empiricism holds the view,...

Logical empiricism holds the view, notwithstanding some its assertions, that the forms of knowledge and consequently the relations of man to nature and to other men never change. According to rationalism, too, all subjective and objective potentialities are rooted in insights which the individual already possesses, but rationality uses existing objects as well as the active inner striving and ideas of man to construct standards for the future. In this regard, it is not so closely associated with the present order as is empiricism.

Everything that happens is either...

Everything that happens is either endurable or not. If it's endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining. If it's unendurable . . . then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well. (Hays translation)

I have received, sir, your...

I have received, sir, your new book against the human species, and I thank you for it. You will please people by your manner of telling them the truth about themselves, but you will not alter them. The horrors of that human society—from which in our feebleness and ignorance we expect so many consolations—have never been painted in more striking colours: no one has ever been so witty as you are in trying to turn us into brutes: to read your book makes one long to go on all fours. Since, however, it is now some sixty years since I gave up the practice, I feel that it is unfortunately impossible for me to resume it: I leave this natural habit to those more fit for it than are you and I.

Music is everything. God himself...

Music is everything. God himself is nothing more than an acoustic hallucination.

Thus, all unknown quantities can...

Thus, all unknown quantities can be expressed in terms of a single quantity, whenever the problem can be constructed by means of circles and straight lines, or by conic sections, or even by some other curve of degree not greater than the third or fourth.But I shall not stop to explain this in more detail, because I should deprive you of the pleasure of mastering it yourself, as well as of the advantage of training your mind by working over it, which is in my opinion the principal benefit to be derived from this science. Because, I find nothing here so difficult that it cannot be worked out by anyone at all familiar with ordinary geometry and with algebra, who will consider carefully all that is set forth in this treatise.

But the thing a man...

But the thing a man does practically believe (and this is often enough without asserting it even to himself, much less to others); the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know for certain, concerning his vital relations to this mysterious Universe, and his duty and destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the rest. That is his religion; or, it may be, his mere scepticism and no-religion: the manner it is in which he feels himself to be spiritually related to the Unseen World or No-World; and I say, if you tell me what that is, you tell me to a very great extent what the man is, what the kind of things he will do is.

Homer tells us also that...

Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could not endure the sight of his deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror.

Concessions to adversaries only end...

Concessions to adversaries only end in self reproach, and the more strictly they are avoided the greater will be the chance of security.

The United States is the...

The United States is the only country where these revolutions are simultaneously in progress and organically linked in such a way as to constitute a single revolution.

The more the concept of...

The more the concept of reason becomes emasculated, the more easily it lends itself to ideological manipulation and to propagation of even the most blatant lies. … Subjective reason conforms to anything.

In contemplating thyself never include...

In contemplating thyself never include the vessel which surrounds thee, and these instruments which are attached about it. For they are like an ax, differing only in this, that they grow to the body. For indeed there is no more use in these parts without the cause which moves and checks them than in the weaver's shuttle, and the writer's pen, and the driver's whip.

Whoever is suspicious incites treason.

Whoever is suspicious incites treason.

Life creates itself in delirium...

Life creates itself in delirium and is undone in ennui.

His Religion is not an...

His Religion is not an easy one: with rigorous fasts, lavations, strict complex formulas, prayers five times a day, and abstinence from wine, it did not "succeed by being an easy religion." As if indeed any religion, or cause holding of religion, could succeed by that! It is a calumny on men to say that they are roused to heroic action by ease, hope of pleasure, recompense, — sugar-plums of any kind, in this world or the next! In the meanest mortal there lies something nobler.

...there are more things to...

...there are more things to admire in men than to despise.

You can now, if you...

You can now, if you choose, employ your present success to advantage, so as to keep what you have got and gain honour and reputation besides, and you can avoid the mistake of those who meet with an extraordinary piece of good fortune, and are led on by hope to grasp continually at something further, through having already succeeded without expecting it.

If only I was as...

If only I was as eloquent as Demosthenes, I would have to do no more than repeat a single word three times. Reason is language — Logos; I gnaw on this marrowbone and will gnaw myself to death over it. It is still always dark over these depths for me: I am still always awaiting an apocalyptic angel with a key to this abyss.

Shame on the soul, to...

Shame on the soul, to falter on the road of life while the body still perseveres.

O love! only a few...

O love! only a few rays of thy sacred fire radiate in this exhausted world!

Life inspires more dread than...

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

I cannot call this Shakspeare...

I cannot call this Shakspeare a "Sceptic," as some do; his indifference to the creeds and theological quarrels of his time misleading them. No: neither unpatriotic, though he says little about his Patriotism; nor sceptic, though he says little about his Faith. Such "indifference" was the fruit of his greatness withal: his whole heart was in his own grand sphere of worship (we may call it such); these other controversies, vitally important to other men, were not vital to him.

L'homme enfin n'est pas entièrement...

L'homme enfin n'est pas entièrement coupable — il n'a pas commencé l'histoire — ni tout à fait innocent, puisqu'il la continue.

Skills are called hidden treasure...

Skills are called hidden treasure as they save like a mother in a foreign country.

When we for recompense have...

When we for recompense have prais'd the vile, It stains the glory in that happy verse Which aptly sings the good.

Just acquiring this amount of...

Just acquiring this amount of "education" will not, by itself, make you an educated person, even less will it give you what Oakeshott calls "judgment." But if the manner of instruction is adequate, the student should be able to acquire this much knowledge in a way that combines intellectual openness, critical scrutiny, and logical clarity. If so, learning will not stop when the student leaves the university.

Let none turn over books,...

Let none turn over books, or roam the stars in quest of God, who sees him not in man.

When you arise in the...

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

God is a comedian playing...

God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

I thought that the only...

I thought that the only action a man could perform without shame was to take his life; that he had no right to diminish himself in the succession of days and the inertic of misery. No elect, I kept telling myself, but those who committed suicide.

If this superstitious fear of...

If this superstitious fear of Spirits were taken away, and with it, Prognostiques from Dreams, false Prophecies, and many other things depending thereon, by which, crafty ambitious persons abuse the simple people, men would be much more fitted then they are for civill Obedience.

All that Mankind has done,...

All that Mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of Books.

As a writer Camus maintained...

As a writer Camus maintained his independence from both friends and enemies in the political and philosophical movements that attempted to subvert his writing to their own ends. ... Camus combines a taut writing style, as well as profound insights on society, with the courage to report back from the abyss of despair, unblinking.

Man should know from this...

Man should know from this rule that he is cut off from truth.

Empirical laws ... have only...

Empirical laws ... have only slight or even no value beyond the limits within which they have been observed to be true.

No one should be discouraged,...

No one should be discouraged, Theaetetus, who can make constant progress, even though it be slow.

Every day that we allow...

Every day that we allow ourselves to take things for granted, every day that we allow some little physical infirmity or worldly worry to come between us and our obstinate, indignant, defiant exultation, we are weakening our genius for life.

What anxiety when one is...

What anxiety when one is not sure of one's doubts or wonders: are these actually doubts?

For Warre, consisteth not in...

For Warre, consisteth not in Battell onely, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to contend by Battell is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of Time, is to be considered in the nature of Warre; as it is in the nature of Weather.

World,—this man is not a...

World,—this man is not a slave with thee! None of thy promotions is necessary for him. His place is with the stars of Heaven: to thee it may be momentous, to him it is indifferent, whether thou place him in the lowest hut, or forty feet higher at the top of thy stupendous high tower, while here on Earth. The joys of Earth that are precious, they depend not on thee and thy promotions. Food and raiment, and, round a social hearth, souls who love him, whom he loves: these are already his. He wants none of thy rewards;

No one deserves to live...

No one deserves to live who has not at least one good-man-and-true for a friend.

A Klee painting named ‘Angelus...

A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.

Neither human wisdom nor divine...

Neither human wisdom nor divine inspiration can confer upon man any greater blessing than this: live a life of happiness and harmony here on earth.