To these spurious principles must...

To these spurious principles must be added some others of great affinity with them… First, that by which we assume that everything in the universe is done according to the order of nature, which principle by Epicurus was proclaimed without any restriction, and by all other philosophers unanimously with extremely rare exceptions, not to be admitted but from supreme necessity.

Take a book, the poorest...

Take a book, the poorest one written, but read it with the passion that it is the only book you will read-ultimately you will read everything out of it, that is, as much as there was in yourself, and you could never get more out of reading, even if you read the best of books.

It is far from easy...

It is far from easy to determine whether she [Nature] has proved to man a kind parent or a merciless stepmother.

The ultimate notion of right...

The ultimate notion of right is that which tends to the universal good; and when one's acting in a certain manner has this tendency, he has a right thus to act.

In his essay on Repressive...

In his essay on Repressive Tolerance...Marcuse argues that the tolerance of the advanced industrial democracies is a deceit... Freedom of speech is not an overriding good, for to allow freedom of speech in the present society is to assist in the propagation of error, and "the telos of tolerance is truth." The truth is carried by the revolutionary minorities and their intellectual spokesmen, such as Marcuse, and the majority have to be liberated by being re-educated into the truth by this minority, who are entitled to suppress rival and harmful opinions. This is perhaps the most dangerous of all Marcuse's doctrines, for not only is what he asserts false, but his is a doctrine which if it were widely held would be an effective barrier to any rational progress and liberation...What, then, are the true connections between tolerance, rationality, and liberation? The telos of tolerance is not truth but rationality. Certainly we value rationality because it is by rational methods that we discover truth; but a man may be rational who holds many false beliefs, and a man may have true beliefs and yet be irrational. What is crucial is that the former has the possibility of progressing toward truth, while the second not only has no grounds for asserting what he believes, even though it is true, but is continually liable to acquire false beliefs. What is it to be rational? It is a necessary condition of rationality that a man shall formulate his beliefs in such a way that it is clear what evidence would be evidence against them and that he shall lay himself open to criticism and refutation in the light of any possible extreme. But to foreclose on tolerance is precisely to cut oneself off from such criticism and refutation. It is to gravely endanger one’s own rationality by not admitting one's own fallibility.

Morality is thus the relation...

Morality is thus the relation of actions to the autonomy of the will, that is, to a possible giving of universal law through its maxims. An action that can coexist with the autonomy of the will is permitted; one that does not accord with it is forbidden. A will whose maxims necessarily harmonize with the laws of autonomy is a holy, absolutely good will. The dependence upon the principle of autonomy of a will that is not absolutely good (moral necessitation) is obligation. This, accordingly, cannot be attributed to a holy being. The objective of an action from obligation is called duty.

He that defers his charity...

He that defers his charity 'till he is dead, is (if a man weighs it rightly) rather liberal of another man's, than of his own.

These two essays probably will...

These two essays probably will essentially be able to interest only theologians. (Preface)

Reaching and understanding is the...

Reaching and understanding is the process of bringing about an agreement on the presupposed basis of validity claims that are mutually recognized.

Indeed I am inclined to...

Indeed I am inclined to go so far as to say that the one cause for which one may properly make war is the cause of peace.

Of course I base my...

Of course I base my characters partly on the people I know—one can't escape it—but fictional characters are oversimplified; they're much less complex than the people one knows.

Either criticism is no good...

Either criticism is no good at all (a very defensible position) or else criticism means saying about an author the very things that would have made him jump out of his boots.

Two things fill the mind...

Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.

Silence is the virtue of...

Silence is the virtue of a fool.

Happy is the one in...

Happy is the one in whom there is true sorrow over his sin, so that the extreme unimportance to him of everything else is only the negative expression of the confirmation that one thing is unconditionally important to him, so that the unconditional unimportance to him of everything else is a deadly sickness that still is very far from being a sickness unto death but is precisely unto life, because the life is in this, that one thing is unconditionally important to him: to find forgiveness. ” P. 152

My early work is politically...

My early work is politically anarchist fiction, in that I was an anarchist for a long period of time. I'm not an anarchist any longer, because I've concluded that anarchism is an impractical ideal. Nowadays, I regard myself as a libertarian. I suppose an anarchist would say, paraphrasing what Marx said about agnostics being "frightened atheists," that libertarians are simply frightened anarchists. Having just stated the case for the opposition, I will go along and agree with them: yes, I am frightened. I'm a libertarian because I don't trust the people as much as anarchists do. I want to see government limited as much as possible; I would like to see it reduced back to where it was in Jefferson's time, or even smaller. But I would not like to see it abolished. I think the average American, if left totally free, would act exactly like Idi Amin. I don't trust the people any more than I trust the government.

Several excuses are always less...

Several excuses are always less convincing than one.

A stiff apology is a...

A stiff apology is a second insult.

A bad review is even...

A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.

All... good and useful properties...

All... good and useful properties of character have a price in exchange for others which have just as much use. Talent has a market price, since the sovereign or estate-owner can use a talented person in all sorts of ways. Temperament has a fancy price,22 since one can converse well with such a person; he is a pleasant companion. But, character has an inner value[,] and it is above all price.

But by far the greatest...

But by far the greatest obstacle to the progress of science and to the undertaking of new tasks and provinces therein is found in this — that men despair and think things impossible.

This is the truth of...

This is the truth of the matter. In every human being there is a capacity, the capacity for knowledge. And every person - the most knowing and the most limited - is in his knowledge far beyond what he is in his life or what his life expresses. Yet this misrelation is of little concern to us. On the contrary, we set a high price on knowledge, and everyone strives for this knowledge more and more. "But," says the sensible person, "one must be careful about the direction one's knowing takes. If my knowing turns inward, against me, if I do not take care to prevent this, then knowing is the most intoxicating thing there is, the way to become completely intoxicated, since there then occurs an intoxicating confusion between the knowledge and the knower, so that the knower himself will resemble, will be, that which is known. If your knowing takes such a turn and you yield to it, it will soon end with your tumbling like a drunk man into actuality, plunging yourself recklessly into drunken action without giving the understanding and sagacity the time to take into proper consideration what is prudent, what is advantageous, what will pay. This is why we, the sober ones, warn you, not against knowing or against expanding your knowledge, but against letting your knowledge take an inward direction, for then it is intoxicating." This is thieves' jargon. It says that it is one's knowledge that, by taking the inward direction in this way, intoxicates, rather than that in precisely this way it makes manifest that one is intoxicated, intoxicated in one's attachment to this earthly life, the temporal, the secular, and the selfish. And this is what one fears, fears that one's knowing, turned inward, toward oneself, will expose the intoxication there, will expose that one prefers to remain in this state, will wrench one out of this state and as a result of such a step will make it impossible for one to slip back into that adored state, into intoxication. p. 118

There are periods of history...

There are periods of history when the visions of madmen and dope fiends are a better guide to reality than the common-sense interpretation of data available to the so-called normal mind. This is one such period, if you haven't noticed already.

The original scriptures of most...

The original scriptures of most religions are poetical and unsystematic. Theology, which generally takes the form of a reasoned commentary on the parables and aphorisms of the scriptures, tends to make its appearance at a later stage of religious history. The Bhagavad-Gita occupies an intermediate position between scripture and theology; for it combines the poetical qualities of the first with the clear-cut methodicalness of the second... one of the clearest and most comprehensive summaries of the Perennial Philosophy ever to have been made. Hence its enduring value, not only for Indians, but for all mankind.

It is amusing to think...

It is amusing to think how much conservative ingenuity has been wasted in the defence of the House of Lords by men who were desperately endeavouring to prove that the House of Lords consisted of clever men. There is one really good defence of the House of Lords [...] and that is, that the House of Lords, in its full and proper strength, consists of stupid men. It really would be a plausible defence of that otherwise indefensible body to point out that the clever men in the Commons, who owed their power to cleverness, ought in the last resort to be checked by the average man in the Lords, who owed their power to accident.

Individualism, united with altruism, has...

Individualism, united with altruism, has become the basis of our western civilization. It is the central doctrine of Christianity ('love your neighbor,' say the Scriptures, not 'love your tribe'); and it is the core of all ethical doctrines which have grown from our civilization and stimulated it. It is also, for instance, Kant's central practical doctrine ("always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as mere means to your end.")

Imagination was given to man...

Imagination was given to man to compensate for what he is not, and a sense of humor to console him for what he is.

Man was born to live...

Man was born to live with his fellow human beings. Separate him, isolate him, his character will go bad, a thousand ridiculous affects will invade his heart, extravagant thoughts will germinate in his brain, like thorns in an uncultivated land.

Logic is not concerned with...

Logic is not concerned with human behavior in the same sense that physiology, psychology, and social sciences are concerned with it. These sciences formulate laws or universal statements which have as their subject matter human activities as processes in time. Logic, on the contrary, is concerned with relations between factual sentences (or thoughts). If logic ever discusses the truth of factual sentences it does so only conditionally, somewhat as follows: if such-and-such a sentence is true, then such-and-such another sentence is true. Logic itself does not decide whether the first sentence is true, but surrenders that question to one or the other of the empirical sciences.

“What about spatial relationships?” the...

“What about spatial relationships?” the investigator inquired, as I was looking at the books. It was difficult to answer. True, the perspective looked rather odd, and the walls of the room no longer seemed to meet in right angles. But these were not the really important facts. The really important facts were that spatial relationships had ceased to matter very much and that my mind was perceiving the world in terms of other than spatial categories. At ordinary times the eye concerns itself with such problems as Where?—How far?—How situated in relation to what? In the mescalin experience the implied questions to which the eye responds are of another order. Place and distance cease to be of much interest. The mind does its Perceiving in terms of intensity of existence, profundity of significance, relationships within a pattern. I saw the books, but was not at all concerned with their positions in space. What I noticed, what impressed itself upon my mind was the fact that all of them glowed with living light and that in some the glory was more manifest than in others. In this context position and the three dimensions were beside the point. Not, of course, that the category of space had been abolished. When I got up and walked about, I could do so quite normally, without misjudging the whereabouts of objects. Space was still there; but it had lost its predominance. The mind was primarily concerned, not with measures and locations, but with being and meaning.

Ireland is a country in...

Ireland is a country in which the political conflicts are at least genuine; they are about something. They are about patriotism, about religion, or about money: the three great realities. In other words, they are concerned with what commonwealth a man lives in, or with what universe a man lives in, or with how he is to manage to live in either.

Go further, and require each...

Go further, and require each of them to make a contribution: you will see how many things are still missing, and you will be obliged to get the assistance of a large number of men who belong to different classes, priceless men, but to whom the gates of the academies are nonetheless closed because of their social station. All the members of these learned societies are more than is needed for a single object of human science; all the societies together are not sufficient for a science of man in general.

In the history of madness,...

In the history of madness, two events signal this change with singular clarity: in 1657, the founding of the Hôpital Général, and the Great Confinement of the poor; and in 1794, the liberation of the mad in chains at Bicêtre. Between these two singular and symmetrical events, something happened, whose ambiguity has perplexed historians of medicine: blind repression in an absolutist regime, according to some, and, according to others, the progressive discovery, by science and philanthropy, of madness in its positive truth. In fact, beneath these reversible meanings, a structure was taking shape, which did not undo that ambiguity but was decisive for it. This structure explains the passage from the medieval and humanist experience of madness to the experience that is our own, which confines madness in mental illness.

The natural law is an...

The natural law is an instrument for progress, not a weapon of revolution.

Most kings and priests have...

Most kings and priests have been despotic, and all religions have been riddled with superstition.

The rich are the scum...

The rich are the scum of the earth in every country.

There is not a Musselman...

There is not a Musselman alive who would not imagine that he was performing an action pleasing to God and his Holy Prophet by exterminating every Christian on earth, while the Christians are scarcely more tolerant on their side.

The public execution, then, has...

The public execution, then, has a juridico-political function. It is a ceremonial by which a momentarily injured sovereignty is reconstituted. It restores that sovereignty by manifesting it at its most spectacular. The public execution, however hasty and everyday, belongs to a whole series of great rituals in which power is eclipsed and restored (coronation, entry of the king into a conquered city, the submission of rebellious subjects); over and above the crime that has placed the sovereign in contempt, it deploys before all eyes an invincible force. Its aim is not so much to re-establish a balance as to bring into play, as its extreme point, the dissymmetry between the subject who has dared to violate the law and the all-powerful sovereign who displays his strength.

I tore myself away from...

I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth — and truth rewarded me.

And he smiles, but not...

And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade.... (But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

The only purpose for which...

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.

Intense, long, certain, speedy, fruitful,...

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.

The most defenseless tenderness and...

The most defenseless tenderness and the bloodiest of powers have a similar need of confession. Western man has become a confessing animal.

The present enshrines the past—and...

The present enshrines the past—and in the past all history has been made by men.

Yet he is right enough...

Yet he is right enough about there being a white magic, if he only knows where to look for it.

The entire history of social...

The entire history of social improvement has been a series of transitions, by which one custom or institution after another, from being a supposed primary necessity of social existence, has passed into the rank of an universally stigmatized injustice and tyranny. So it has been with the distinctions of slaves and freemen, nobles and serfs, patricians and plebeians; and so it will be, and in part already is, with the aristocracies of colour, race, and sex.

We see..., a connection between...

We see..., a connection between the lack of parrhesia and slavery. For if you cannot speak freely... then you are enslaved.

Has a philosopher like you...

Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of understanding?

The great pessimists in the...

The great pessimists in the history of thought [...] have prepared our minds to understand that despair can be what it was for Nietzsche (though on an infra-ontological level and in a domain fraught with mortal dangers) the springboard to the loftiest affirmation.

I remember the very place...

I remember the very place in Hyde Park where, in my fourteenth year, on the eve of leaving my father's house for a long absence, he told me that I should find, as I got acquainted with new people, that I had been taught many things which youths of my age did not commonly know; and that many persons would be disposed to talk to me of this, and to compliment me upon it. What other things he said on this topic I remember very imperfectly; but he wound up by saying, that whatever I knew more than others, could not be ascribed to any merit in me, but to the very unusual advantage which had fallen to my lot.