“Truth reduces the terrible complexity of a man to the simplicity of his word.”

See the truth. Tell the truth.

Thus, you should never sacrifice what you could be for what you are.

You can only find out what you actually believe (rather than what you think you believe) by watching how you act.

Women select men. That makes them nature, because nature is what selects.

People who know what to expect from one another can act together to tame the world.

When you have something to say, silence is a lie.

When the aristocracy catches a cold, as it is said, the working class dies of pneumonia.

The purpose of life, as far as I can tell, is to find a mode of being that’s so meaningful that the fact that life is suffering is no longer relevant.

True thinking is rare – just like true listening.

It is better, proverbially, to rule your own spirit than to rule a city.

To act is literally to manifest preference about one set of possibilities, contrasted with an infinite set of alternatives. If we wish to live, we must act. Acting, we value.

That’s poetic in its malevolence.

Anyone who was out to change the world by changing others was to be regarded with suspicion. The temptations of such a position were too great to be resisted.

What you aim at determines what you see.

Worthlessness is the default condition.

Consciousness is a mystery that faces the mystery of potential and transforms it into actuality. We do that with every choice we make. Our choices determine the destiny of the world. By making a choice, you alter the structure of reality.

A man’s true wealth is the good he does in the world.

Man cannot survive except through his mind.

If a man can be properly said to love something, it must be clear that he feels affection for it as a whole, and does not love part of it to the exclusion of the rest.

When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit.

After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.

A man’s real education begins after he has left school. True education is gained through the discipline of life.

In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

I was once a fortunate man but at some point fortune abandoned me.