“Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Maker of the world, but degenerates once it gets into the hands of man”

If we assume man has been corrupted by an artificial civilization, what is the natural state? the state of nature from which he has been removed? imagine, wandering up and down the forest without industry, without speech, and without home.

Truth is an homage that the good man pays to his own dignity.

It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.

But in some great souls, who consider themselves as citizens of the world, and forcing the imaginary barriers that separate people from people.

I may be no better, but at least I am different.

The imagination which causes so many ravages among us, never speaks to the heart of savages.

To do is to be.

The sociable man, always outside himself, is capable of living only in the opinions of others and, so to speak, derives the sentiment of his own existence solely from their judgment.

If there is in this world a well-attested account, it is that of vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete. And with all that, who is there who believes in vampires?

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

To be sane in a world of madman is in itself madness.

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..

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

What good is it looking for our happiness in the opinion of others if we can find it in ourselves?

The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.

What wisdom can you find greater than kindness.

I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death; and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen, and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.

He who destroys a good book kills reason itself.

The devil can only destroy those who are already on their way to damnation.

There is not room for Death, Nor atom that his might could render void: Thou – Thou art Being and Breath, And what Thou art may never be destroyed.

What use are the best of arguments when they can be destroyed by force?

They can romanticize us so, mirrors, and that is their secret: what a subtle torture it would be to destroy all the mirrors in the world: where then could we look for reassurance of our identities?

Do nothing, only keep agitating, debating; and things will destroy themselves.

On the surface of the ocean, men wage war and destroy each other; but down here, just a few feet beneath the surface, there is a calm and peace, unmolested by man