“To tell the truth is very difficult, and young people are rarely capable of it.”

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.

Everything intelligent is so boring.

Whatever our fate is or may be, we have made it and do not complain of it.

If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.

My principal sin is doubt. I doubt everything, and am in doubt most of the time.

Love alone is the only reasonable activity or pursuit of humankind.

Love alone is the only reasonable activity or pursuit of humankind.

Which is worse? the wolf who cries before eating the lamb or the wolf who does not.

Which is worse? the wolf who cries before eating the lamb or the wolf who does not.

Kings are the slaves of history.

A battle is won by him who is firmly resolved to win it.

It’s not given to people to judge what’s right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.

The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.

A man on a thousand mile walk has to forget his goal and say to himself every morning, ‘Today I’m going to cover twenty-five miles and then rest up and sleep.

We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.

Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.

Words are capable of arousing the strongest emotions and prompting all men’s actions.

Nothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment.

I know who I am, I know what I can and can’t do. I know what I will and won’t do. I know what I’m capable of and I don’t agree to do things that I don’t think I can pull off.

Man is happiest when he is creating. In fact, the highest state of which man is capable lies in the creative act.

Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.

If the nation is not capable of preserving itself and reproducing, if it loses it vital bearings and ideals, then it doesn’t need foreign enemies – it will fall apart on its own.

I know that man is capable of great deeds. But if he isn’t capable of great emotion, well, he leaves me cold.