“Untruth corrupts the soul and the state alike, and one form of corruption feeds the other.”

That’s poetic in its malevolence.

Anyone who was out to change the world by changing others was to be regarded with suspicion. The temptations of such a position were too great to be resisted.

What you aim at determines what you see.

Worthlessness is the default condition.

Consciousness is a mystery that faces the mystery of potential and transforms it into actuality. We do that with every choice we make. Our choices determine the destiny of the world. By making a choice, you alter the structure of reality.

If you betray yourself, if you say untrue things, if you act out a lie, you weaken your character.

It took untold generations to get you where you are. A little gratitude might be in order. If you’re going to insist on bending the world to your way, you better have your reasons.

The things that pose the greatest threats to your survival are the most real things.

One of the problems with being relatively wealthy if you are a parent is that you cannot provide your children with necessity.

And if you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see what weak men are capable of.

If a child has not been taught to behave properly by the age of four, it will forever be difficult for him or her to make friends.

Truth reduces the terrible complexity of a man to the simplicity of his word.

In Paradise, everyone speaks the truth. That is what makes it Paradise. Tell the truth. Or, at least, don’t lie.

You remember the past not so that it is “accurately recorded,” to say it again, but so that you are prepared for the future.

Aristotle defined virtues simply as the ways of behaving that are most conducive to happiness in life.

But we can aim too high. Or too low. Or too chaotically. So we fail and live in disappointment, even when we appear to others to be living well.

You will attract to yourself people who harmonize with your own philosophy of life, whether you wish it or not.

I know not what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.

I make music that I know that people will enjoy, and balance the ideas and philosophy that we put in music with music that when we play it live, people can move to it and groove to it.

He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.

Religion and philosophy are to be preserved distinct. We are not to introduce divine revelations into philosophy, nor philosophical opinions into religion.

Philosophy is written in that great book which ever lies before our eyes. I mean the universe, but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols, in which it is written.

Like too much alcohol, self-consciousness makes us see ourselves double.