“Mankind has got to get back to the rhythm of the cosmos.”

The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.

Instead of chopping yourself down to fit the world, chop the world down to fit yourself.

Perhaps only those people who are capable of real togetherness have that look of being alone in the world.

Give up bearing children and bear hope and love and devotion to those already born.

We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.

Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved.

The novel is the one bright book of life. Books are not life. They are only tremulations on the ether. But the novel as a tremulation can make the whole man alive tremble.

He felt he had lost it for good, he knew what it was to have been in communication with her, and to be cast off again. In misery, his heart like a heavy stone, he went about unliving.

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself

If I were the moon, I know where I would fall down.

Love is never a fulfillment. Life is never a thing of continuous bliss. There is no paradise. Fight and laugh and feel bitter and feel bliss: and fight again. Fight, fight. That is life.

Vitally, the human race is dying. It is like a great uprooted tree, with its roots in the air. We must plant ourselves again in the universe.

It’s not art for art’s sake, it’s art for my sake.

I would rather sit still in a state of peace on a stone than ride in the motor-car of a multi-millionaire and feel the peacelessness of the multi-millionaire poisoning me.

I love trying things and discovering how I hate them.

The only rule is, do what you really, impulsively, wish to do. But always act on your own responsibility, sincerely. And have the courage of your own strong emotion.

Humanism is a philosophy of joyous service for the greater good of all humanity, of application of new ideas of scientific progress for the benefit of all.

There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so.

I believe that there is a greater power in the world than the evil power of military force, of nuclear bombs — there is the power of good, of morality, of humanitarianism.

One can’t love humanity. One can only love people.

Nature’s law, That man was made to mourn. Man’s inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn! O Death, the poor man’s dearest friend, The kindest and the best!

To have humanism we must first be convinced of our humanity. As we move further into decadence this becomes more difficult.

Love, hope, fear, faith – these make humanity; These are its sign and note and character.

There are no nations! There is only humanity. And if we don’t come to understand that right soon, there will be no nations, because there will be no humanity.