“We may become the makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.”

Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.

If we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.

The conspiracy theory of society, comes from abandoning God and then asking: “Who is in his place?”

It is complete nihilism to propose laying down arms in a world where atom bombs are around. It is very simple: there is no way of achieving peace other than with weapons.

The future depends on ourselves, and we do not depend on any historical necessity.

Theories are nets cast to catch what we call ‘the world’: to rationalize, to explain, and to master it. We endeavor to make the mesh ever finer and finer.

No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.

Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but hell.

No book can ever be finished. While working on it we learn just enough to find it immature the moment we turn away from it

The most we can say of democracy or freedom is that they give our personal abilities a little more influence on our well-being.

It is not the consciousness of man that determines his existence – rather, it is his social existence that determines his consciousness.

It is wrong to think that belief in freedom always leads to victory; we must always be prepared for it to lead to defeat. If we choose freedom, then we must be prepared to perish along with it.

The wise man belongs to all countries, for the home of a great soul is the whole world.

Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you.

We must regard all laws or theories as hypothetical or conjectural; that is, as guesses.

True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.

Well, these sad and hopeless obstacles are welcome in one sense, for they enable us to look with indifference upon the cruel satires that Fate loves to indulge in.

Oh, Vanity of vanities! How wayward the decrees of Fate are; How very weak the very wise, How very small the very great are!

The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life: Try to be Shakespeare, leave the rest to fate!

Indifference to fate which, though it often makes a villain of a man, is the basis of his sublimity when it does not.

There are things I am more interested in than the clone thing. How are they trying to find their place in the world and make sense of their lives? To what extent can they transcend their fate? As time starts to run out, what are the things that really matter?

When Fate wills that something should come to pass, she sends forth a million of little circumstances to clear and prepare the way.

For we by conquest, of our soveraine might,And by eternall doome of Fate’s decree,Have wonne the Empire of the Heavens bright.

You cannot reason a person out of something they were not reasoned into.