“Give me matter, and I will construct a world out of it!”

Things which as effects presuppose others as causes cannot be reciprocally at the same time causes of these.

Freedom, is a property of all rational beings.

Nature is beautiful because it looks like Art; and Art can only be called beautiful if we are conscious of it as Art while yet it looks like Nature.

The enjoyment of power inevitably corrupts the judgement of reason, and perverts its liberty.

Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

Woman wants control, man self-control.

Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.

The great mass of people are worthy of our respect.

Laughter is an affect resulting from the sudden transformation of a heightened expectation into nothing.

The greatest human quest is to know what one must do in order to become a human being.

Prudence reproaches; conscience accuses.

From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.

Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own intelligence!

Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality.

Settle, for sure and universally, what conduct will promote the happiness of a rational being.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

Genius is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one, and the man of talent sees two or three, plus the ability to register that multiple perception in the material of his art.

Art first of all is optical. That’s where the material of our art is: in what our eyes think.

Human material seems to have one major defect: it does not like to be considered merely as human material. It finds it hard to endure the feeling that it must resign itself to passive acceptance of changes introduced from above.

The poor man wants many things; the covetous man, all.

I used to think that having many material things would increase one’s stock of happiness. I found that to be completely untrue. The trappings don’t make the man at all.

We get something to do and as soon as we’ve got it, it gets us.

Reusing and recycling our materials is the most important thing we can do.

Everywhere we seek the Absolute, and always we find only things.