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

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.

Is there any knowledge in the world that is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand.

It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence that could support this.

Anything you’re good at contributes to happiness.

We love our habits more than our income, often more than our life.

Sin is geographical.

The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.

Where they love they do not desire and where they desire they do not love.

Every desire is a self-portrait of the person who pursues it.

Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.

I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.

Desire nothing for yourself, which you do not desire for others.

Sometimes she did not know what she feared, what she desired: whether she feared or desired what had been or what would be, and precisely what she desired, she did not know.

Immoderate desire is the mark of a child, not a man.

Men who are ruled by reason desire nothing for themselves which they would not wish for all mankind.