“The cost of a thing is what I call life which has to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”

The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring. And that is not happiness.

The man who has ceased to fear has ceased to care.

Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct.

The man whose nature is such that by one path alone his chief desire will reach consummation will try to find it on that path, whatever it may be, and whatever the world thinks of it; and if he does not, he is contemptible.

Reason teaches us that what is good is good for something, and that what is good for nothing is not good at all.

Another occupation might have been better.

I will begin with the self-styled “Christian” party, who profess to base their morality on the New Testament. But whether it is really more Christian to follow or to ignore the teachings of the Gospels I shall not discuss.

The one self- knowledge worth having is to know one’s own mind.

Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived. It is a pity that this is still the only knowledge of their wives at which some men seem to arrive.

The force of the blow depends on the resistance. It is sometimes better not to struggle against temptation. Either fly or yield at once.

An aphorism is true where it has fixed the impression of a genuine experience.

The hunter for aphorisms on human nature has to fish in muddy water, and he is even condemned to find much of his own mind.

Religion is rather the attempt to express the complete reality of goodness through every aspect of our being.

My external sensations are no less private to my self than are my thoughts or my feelings. In either case my experience falls within my own circle, a circle closed on the outside… the whole world for each is peculiar and private to that soul.

Up to a certain point every man is what he thinks he is.

True penitence condemns to silence. What a man is ready to recall he would be willing to repeat.

Because it appears to me a hazardous thing to exchange my soul for my shadow.

In science, the best precept is to alter and exchange our ideas as fast as science moves ahead.

Sovereignty is not negotiated in exchange for anything; to maintain the achievements of the revolution does not depend on a foreign power.

The exchange of trust and the experience of understanding between two people was like a sign or witness to the possibilitity of eternal caring and understanding and communication.

In an age when nations and individuals routinely exchange murder for murder

What really enthralls me is working with the actor and seeing where you can go with that. It’s in that exchange and that relationship.

To regard one’s immortality as an exchange of matter is as strange as predicting the future of a violin case once the expensive violin it held has broken and lost its worth.

For often evil men are rich, and good men poor; But we will not exchange with them Our virtue for their wealth since one abides always, While riches change their owners every day.