“It is so much easier to live placidly and complacently. Of course, to live placidly and complacently is not to live at all.”

You stand on dead men’s legs. You’ve never had any of your own. You couldn’t walk alone between two sunrises and hustle the meat for your belly.

Having no new companions, nothing remained for him but to read.

The Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely slept.

I’d rather sing one wild song and burst my heart with it, than live a thousand years watching my digestion and being afraid of the wet.

The function of man is to live, not to exist.

If cash comes with fame, come fame; if cash comes without fame, come cash.

Pursuit and possession are accompanied by states of consciousness so wide apart that they can never be united.

You look back and see how hard you worked and how poor you were, and how desperately anxious you were to succeed, and all you can remember is how happy you were.

She was thrilling to a desire that urged her to go forward, to be in closer to that fire, to be squabbling with the dogs, and to be avoiding and dodging the stumbling feet of men.

Affluence means influence.

The ghostly winter silence had given way to the great spring murmur of awakening life.

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

One cannot violate the promptings of one’s nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.

Life is so short. I would rather sing one song than interpret the thousand.

He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survive.

Love is the sum of all the arts, as it is the reason for their existence.

I found that things became a lot easier when I no longer expected to win. You abandon your masterpiece and sink into the real masterpiece.

The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.

Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think.

Life becomes easier and more beautiful when we can see the good in other people.

Death is the easiest of all things after it, and the hardest of all things before it.

Good works, because they must be forgotten instantly, can never become part of the world; they come and go,leaving no trace. They truly are not of this world.

Tools and instruments which can ease the effort of labor considerably are themselves not a product of labor but of work; they do not belong in the process of consumption but are part and parcel of the world of use objects.

I hate luxury. I exercise moderation, It will be easy to forget your vision and purpose one you have fine clothes, fast horses and beautiful women. [In which case], you will be no better than a slave, and you will surely lose everything.