“I would rather be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices.”

To renounce freedom is to renounce one’s humanity, one’s rights as a man and equally one’s duties.

We cannot teach children the danger of lying to men without feeling as men, the greater danger of lying to children.

Alas, it is when we are beginning to leave this mortal body that it most offends us!

To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.

I have never thought, for my part, that man’s freedom consists in his being able to do whatever he wills, but that he should not, by any human power, be forced to do what is against his will.

It is a great evil for a Chief of a nation to be born the enemy of the freedom whose defender he should be.

Or, rather, let us be more simple and less vain.

Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?

I feel an indescribable ecstasy and delirium in melting, as it were, into the system of being, in identifying myself with the whole of nature.

I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.

Nature made me happy and good, and if I am otherwise, it is society’s fault.

If force compels obedience, there is no need to invoke a duty to obey, and if force ceases to compel obedience, there is no longer any obligation.

There are times when I am so unlike myself that I might be taken for someone else of an entirely opposite character.

I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.

Quit thy childhood, my friend, and wake up!

My love for imaginary objects and my facility in lending myself to them ended by disillusioning me with everything around me, and determined that love of solitude which I have retained ever since that time.

The love of books is among the choicest gifts of the gods.

You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices.

If you are born an artist, you have no choice but to fight to stay an artist.

I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.

When a door closes you have two choices: give up, or keep going.

A choice of pains. That’s what living was all about.

You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.

You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.