“Innocence is a splendid thing, only it has the misfortune not to keep very well and to be easily misled.”

Freedom is the opposite of necessity.

Without man and his potential for moral progress, the whole of reality would be a mere wilderness, a thing in vain, and have no final purpose.

Give me matter and I will build a world out of it.

The possession of power inevitably spoils the free use of reason.

Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.

Heaven has given human beings three things to balance the odds of life: hope, sleep, and laughter.

Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.

The cultivation of reason leads humanity sooner to misery than happiness.

Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.

One who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him.

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

The busier we are, the more acutely we feel that we live, the more conscious we are of life.

Only the descent into the hell of self-knowledge can pave the way to godliness.

Genius is the ability to independently arrive at and understand concepts that would normally have to be taught by another person.

Simply to acquiesce in skepticism can never suffice to overcome the restlessness of reason.

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.

I’m not sure why writing for others became harder. Probably a reluctance to give away anything you might conceivably use yourself caused a block. I did it, but it remained hard when it had once been easy.

It is easy to sit up and take notice, What is difficult is getting up and taking action.

Let the healing be easier than the hurting.

It’s easier to go down a hill than up it but the view is much better at the top.

Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.

History was easy, but I don’t know about the Calculus. It seemed like it was making sense, so that probably means I failed.

It is easier to be a lover than a husband for the simple reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day than to say pretty things from time to time.

I think it’s really easy to be the altruistic hero of your own narrative and story.