“Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, and achieved fewer results, than any other branch of learning.”

The use of self-control is like the use of brakes on the train. It is useful when you find yourself in the wrong direction but merely harmful when the direction is right.

It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won’t go.

I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

One of the most powerful of all our passions is the desire to be admired and respected.

Mathematics rightly viewed possesses not only truth but supreme beauty.

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.

Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country.

The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things, or, if it is night, about nothing at all.

A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.

Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.

In all affairs, it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.

And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt his existence.

The secret of happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible.

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

The greatest gifts my parents gave to me were their unconditional love and a set of values.

You know, be able to do something great in your life, you’re gonna have to realize your failures. You’re gonna have to embrace them and figure out how to overcome it.

Poverty often hides her charms under an ugly mask; yet thousands have been forced into greatness by their very struggle to keep the wolf from the door.

We will see that the greatest problem confronting civilization is not merely religious extremism: rather, it is the larger set of cultural and intellectual accommodations we have made to faith itself.

The greatest strength any human being an have is to recognize his or her own weaknesses. When you identify your weaknesses, you can begin to remedy them – or at least figure out how to work around them.

When you give someone your time, you are giving them a portion of your life that you’ll never get back.Your time is your life. That is why the greatest gift you can give someone is your time

Respect is one of the greatest expressions of love.

Music is the fourth great material want, first food, then clothes, then shelter, then music.