“It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.”

The wisest among us is very lucky never to have met the woman, be she beautiful or ugly, intelligent or stupid, who could drive him crazy enough to be fit to be put into an asylum.

My ideas are my whores.

There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.

Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one’s fatherland, which is perishable?

Passions destroy more prejudices than philosophy does.

The infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned.

First of all move me, surprise me, rend my heart; make me tremble, weep, shudder; outrage me; delight my eyes afterwards if you can.

Scepticism is the first step towards truth.

What a fine comedy this world would be if one did not play a part in it.

There are things I can’t force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint.

Shakespeare’s fault is not the greatest into which a poet may fall. It merely indicates a deficiency of taste.

The best doctor is the one you run to and can’t find.

The world is the house of the strong.

Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.

Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.

Only God and some few rare geniuses can keep forging ahead into novelty.

Do no cheat thy Heart and tell her, ‘Grief will pass away.’

They are innocent/they are not the ones who raped the earth/they enrich it for us all from the tiniest microscopic beings to the largest ones.

The warlords–of war and peace–destroyed so much, not only what existed, but all those new things that could have existed, if only individuals were left in peace.

Extinction’ issue. Save the species for whom???

Learn what you are and be such.

True freedom is in the Realization that there is only God and You are That One.

Lest the chain be broken Ere the pilgrimage be done.

Without true celebration discipline is obnoxious.