Malcolm Forbes (August 19, 1919 – February 24, 1990) was an American businessman and publisher of Forbes magazine, which was founded by his father B. C. Forbes. He promoted capitalism and free market economics and was known for an extravagant lifestyle, including spending $2.5 million on his 70th birthday party.

Below we list some words of wisdom from Malcolm Forbes.

“Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.”

“If you’ve had a good time playing the game, you’re a winner even if you lose.”

“It’s always worthwhile to make others aware of their worth.”

“It’s so much easier to suggest solutions when you don’t know too much about the problem.”

“Failure is success if we learn from it.”

“Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.”

“Since you have to do the things you have to do, be wise enough to do some of the things you want to do.”

“The smart ones ask when they don’t know. And, sometimes, when they do.”

“The difference between towering and cowering is totally a matter of inner posture.”

“Keeping score of old scores and scars, getting even and one-upping, always makes you less than you are.”

“Being right half the time beats being half-right all the time.”

“When things are bad, we take comfort in the thought that they could always get worse. And when they are, we find hope in the thought that things are so bad they have to get better.”

“Those who talk loudly are rarely listened to.”

“The more sympathy you give, the less you need.”

“To seduce most anyone, ask for and listen to his opinion.”

“Scientists ofttimes have the greatest faith in a higher power. The more they dig into, establish facts and figures, the more they marvel about the mystery of it all.”

“Listening to advice often accomplishes far more than heeding it.”

“Meaningful truths are never newly discovered; they’re just uncovered anew.”

“Some people as a result of adversity are sadder, wiser, kinder, more human. Most of us are better, though, when things go better. Knowing when to keep your mouth shut is invariably more important than opening it at the right time. Always listen to a man when he describes the faults of others. Often times, most times, he’s describing his own, revealing himself.”

“How in heck are they handling their surplus population in Hell these days? Maybe by the time you and I are in the queue there won’t be room for us.”

“He who hesitates is sometimes wise.”

“The richest person in the world – in fact. All the riches in the world – couldn’t provide you with anything like the endless, incredible loot available at your local library. You can measure the awareness, the breadth and the wisdom of a civilization, a nation, a people by the priority given to preserving these repositories of all that we are, all that we were, or will be.”

“Daydreams are doable. The turn-on is not in scale, spectacle, or cost. It’s in the doing. Anything you haven’t done is an adventure. Wanting to is the principal requirement. If you can do and want to, don’t not. In short, while alive, live.”

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Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25th, 1908 – December 25th, 2000), an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, was known as “one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century”.

Below we list some words of wisdom from Willard Van Orman Quine.

“Necessity resides in the way we talk about things, not in the things we talk about.”

“Logic chases truth up the tree of grammar.”

“I have been accused of denying consciousness but I am not conscious of having done so.”

“Life is what the least of us make the most of us feel the least of us make the most of.”

“Science is not a substitute for common sense, but an extension of it.”

“The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience.”

“Irrefragability, thy name is mathematics.”

“We must not leap to the fatalistic conclusion that we are stuck with the conceptual scheme that we grew up in. We can change it, bit by bit, plank by plank, though meanwhile there is nothing to carry us along but the evolving conceptual scheme itself. The philosopher’s task was well compared by Neurath to that of a mariner who must rebuild his ship on the open sea.”

“To define an expression is, paradoxically speaking, to explain how to get along without it. To define is to eliminate.”

“To be is to be the value of a variable.”

“Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.”

“One man’s observation is another man’s closed book or flight of fancy.”

“Language is a social art.”

“Unscientific man is beset by a deplorable desire to have been right. The scientist is distinguished by a desire to be right.”

“Creatures inveterately wrong in their inductions have a pathetic but praise-worthy tendency to die before reproducing their kind.”

“My position is a naturalistic one; I see philosophy not as an a priori propaedeutic or groundwork for science, but as continuous with science. I see philosophy and science as in the same boat–a boat which, to revert to Neurath’s figure as I so often do, we can rebuild only at sea while staying afloat in it. There is no external vantage point, no first philosophy.”

“The word ‘definition’ has come to have a dangerously reassuring sound, owing no doubt to its frequent occurrence in logical and mathematical writings.”

“Wyman’s overpopulated universe is in many ways unlovely. It offends the aesthetic sense of us who have a taste for desert landscapes.”

“Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference and wedded to the word.”

“Implication is thus the very texture of our web of belief, and logic is the theory that traces it.”

“Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plato’s beard; historically it has proved tough, frequently dulling the edge of Occam’s razor.”

“Our talk of external things, our very notion of things, is just a conceptual apparatus that helps us to foresee and control the triggerings of our sensory receptors in the light of previous triggering of our sensory receptors.”

“We do not learn first what to talk about and then what to say about it.”

“One man’s antinomy is another man’s falsidical paradox, give or take a couple of thousand years.”

“It is within science itself, and not in some prior philosophy, that reality is to be identified and described.”

“A curious thing about the ontological problem is its simplicity. It can be put into three Anglo-Saxon monosyllables: ‘What is there?’ It can be answered, moreover, in a word–‘Everything’–and everyone will accept this answer as true.”

“For me the problem of induction is a problem about the world: a problem of how we, as we are now (by our present scientific lights), in a world we never made, should stand better than random, or coin-tossing chances changes of coming out right when we predict by inductions. . . .”

“No two of us learn our language alike, nor, in a sense, does any finish learning it while he lives.”

“Confusion of sign and object is original sin coeval with the word.”

“Different persons growing up in the same language are like different bushes trimmed and trained to take the shape of identical elephants. The anatomical details of twigs and branches will fulfill the elephantine form differently from bush to bush, but the overall outward results are alike.”

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Michel de Montaigne (February 28, 1533 – September 13 1592), was a French statesman, writer, and philosopher, known for making the essay a popular literary genre. He was one of the most notable philosophers of the French Renaissance and is most known for his cynical statement, “What do I know?”

Below we list some words of wisdom from Michel de Montaigne.

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.”

“He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.”

“The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.”

“Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.”

“The lack of wealth is easily repaired but the poverty of the soul is irreplaceable.”

“I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.”

“We can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men’s wisdom.”

“We must learn to endure what we cannot avoid. Our life is composed, like the harmony of the world, of contrary things, also of different tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked only one kind, what would he have to say?”

“Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them.”

“We commend a horse for his strength, and sureness of foot, and not for his rich caparisons; a greyhound for his share of heels, not for his fine collar; a hawk for her wing, not for her jesses and bells. Why, in like manner, do we not value a man for what is properly his own? He has a great train, a beautiful palace, so much credit, so many thousand pounds a year, and all these are about him, but not in him.”

“If others examined themselves attentively, as I do, they would find themselves, as I do, full of inanity and nonsense. Get rid of it I cannot without getting rid of myself.”

“A man must keep a little back shop where he can be himself without reserve. In solitude alone can he know true freedom.”

“Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.”

“Happiness involves working toward meaningful goals.”

“Take care that old age does not wrinkle your spirit even more than your face.”

“Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.”

“Though we may be learned by another’s knowledge, we can never be wise but by our own experience.”

“Learning is a good medicine: but no medicine is powerful enough to preserve itself from taint and corruption independently of defects in the jar that it is kept in. One man sees clearly but does not see straight: consequently he sees what is good but fails to follow it; he sees knowledge and does not use it.”

“To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.”

“There is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others.”

“Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately.”

“Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one’s own inner self.”

“Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.”

“Dreams are faithful interpreters of our inclinations; but there is art required to sort and understand them.”

“Things are not bad in themselves, but our cowardice makes them so.”

“Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience.”

“Meditation is a rich and powerful method of study for anyone who knows how to examine his mind.”

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Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams (September 21st, 1929 – June 10th, 2003) was an English moral philosopher. His authored the books Problems of the Self, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, Shame and Necessity, and Truth and Truthfulness.

He was a Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and a Deutsch Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.

Below we list some words of wisdom from Bernard Williams.

“If we try and fail, we have temporary disappointments. But if we do not try at all, we have permanent regrets.”

“Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit.”

“There was never a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope.”

“It is almost impossible to watch a sunset and not dream.”

“We grow a little every time we do not take advantage of somebody’s weakness.”

“Life is supposed to be a series of peaks and valleys. The secret is to keep the valleys from becoming Grand Canyons.”

“Unsolicited advice is the junk mail of life.”

“We must escape our illusions of correctness to understand the actions and beliefs of others.”

“I like the word “indolence.” It makes my laziness seem classy.”

“There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.”

“We may pass violets looking for roses. We may pass contentment looking for victory.”

“The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring.”

“Few things move as quietly as the future.”

“Talent is a flame. Genius is a fire.”

“Sooner or later we all quote our mothers.”

“This is the end of the day, but soon there will be a new day.”

“A half-truth is usually less than half of that.”

“Tranquility is like quicksilver. The harder you grab for it, the less likely you will grasp it.”

“A friend is a lot of things, but a critic isn’t.”

“The average man will bristle if you say his father was dishonest, but he will brag a little if he discovers that his great-grandfather was a Pirate.”

“If a June night could talk, it would probably boast it invented romance.”

“Few things are as democratic as a snowstorm.”

“No symphony orchestra ever played music like a two-year-old girl laughing with a puppy.”

“People who say, ‘Let the chips fall where they may,’ usually figure they will not be hit by a chip.”

“September tries its best to have us forget summer.”

“You are mature when you know what is foolhardy and what is courage.”

“Books had instant replay long before televised sports.”

“An extravagance is something that your spirit thinks is a necessity.”

“Women have a favorite room, men a favorite chair.”

“Laziness has many disguises. Soon “winter doldrums” will become “spring fever.”

“Americans are optimists. They hope they’ll be wealthy someday – and they’re positive they can get one more brushful of paint out of an empty can.”

“Ideas are like wandering sons. They show up when you least expect them.”

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Denis Diderot (October 5, 1713 – July 31, 1784) was a French philosopher and writer. He was a major figure in the Age of Enlightenment and best known as co-founder and contributor to the Encyclopédie, an encyclopedia of the arts and sciences.

Below we list some words of wisdom from Denis Diderot.

“We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.”

“All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone’s feelings.”

“Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.”

“A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it. What has never been gone into impartially has never been properly gone into. Hence skepticism is the first step toward truth. It must be applied generally, because it is the touchstone.”

“There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge… observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.”

“Distance is a great promoter of admiration.”

“You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.”

“When we know to read our own hearts, we acquire wisdom of the hearts of others.”

“Instinct guides the animal better than the man. In the animal it is pure, in man it is led astray by his reason and intelligence.”

“There are things I can’t force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint.”

“Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common.”

“Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.”

“It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.”

“To say that man is a compound of strength and weakness, light and darkness, smallness and greatness, is not to indict him, it is to define him.”

“The philosopher forms his principles on an infinity of particular observations. He does not confuse truth with plausibility, he takes for truth what is true, for false what is false, for doubtful what is doubtful, and probable what is probable. The philosophical spirit is thus a spirit of observation and accuracy.”

“In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.”

“Oh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them.”

“As long as the centuries continue to unfold, the number of books will grow continually, and one can predict that a time will come when it will be almost as difficult to learn anything from books as from the direct study of the whole universe. It will be almost as convenient to search for some bit of truth concealed in nature as it will be to find it hidden away in an immense multitude of bound volumes.”

“People praise virtue, but they hate it, they run away from it. It freezes you to death, and in this world you’ve got to keep your feet warm.”

“There comes a moment during which almost every girl or boy falls into melancholy; they are tormented by a vague inquietude which rests on everything and finds nothing to calm it. They seek solitude; they weep; the silence to be found in cloister attracts them: the image of peace that seems to reign in religious houses seduces them. They mistake the first manifestations of a developing sexual nature for the voice of God calling them to Himself; and it is precisely when nature is inciting them that they embrace a fashion of life contrary to nature’s wish.”

“Does not vanity itself cease to be blamable, is it not even ennobled, when it is directed to laudable objects, when it confines itself to prompting us to great and generous actions?”

“Although a man may wear fine clothing, if he lives peacefully; and is good, self-possessed, has faith and is pure; and if he does not hurt any living being, he is a holy man.”

“All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.”

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Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (October 28th, 1466 – July 12th 1536) was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic theologian, educationalist, satirist, and philosopher. He is regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of the Northern Renaissance and a major figure of Dutch and Western culture.

Besides pioneering new Latin and Greek scholarly editions of the New Testament and of the Church Fathers, he also wrote On Free Will, The Praise of Folly, The Complaint of Peace, Handbook of a Christian Knight, On Civility in Children, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style and many other titles.

Below we list some words of wisdom from Desiderius Erasmus

“Read first the best books. The important thing for you is not how much you know, but the quality of what you know.”

“When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.”

“Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.”

“The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth”

“No Man is wise at all Times, or is without his blind Side.”

“Man’s mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth.”

“The chief element of happiness is this: to want to be what you are.”

“He who allows oppression shares the crime.”

“Now what else is the whole life of mortals, but a sort of comedy in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on and play each ones part until the manager walks them off the stage?”

“Your library is your paradise.”

“Prevention is better than cure.”

“Sacred scripture is of course the basic authority for everything; yet I sometimes run across ancient sayings or pagan writings – even the poets – so purely and reverently and admirably expressed that I can’t help believing the author’s hearts were moved by some divine power.  And perhaps the spirit of Christ is more widespread than we understand, and the company of the saints includes many not on our calendar.”

“Many times what cannot be refuted by arguments can be parried by laughter.”

“At last concluded that no creature was more miserable than man, for that all other creatures are content with those bounds that nature set them, only man endeavors to exceed them.”

“The majority of the common people loathe war and pray for peace; only a handful of individuals, whose evil joys depend on general misery, desire war.”

“Before you sleep, read something that is exquisite, and worth remembering.”

“I put up with this church, in the hope that one day it will become better, just as it is constrained to put up with me in the hope that I will become better.”

“You must acquire the best knowledge first, and without delay; it is the height of madness to learn what you will later have to unlearn.”

“There is nothing I congratulate myself on more heartily than on never having joined a sect.”

“I doubt if a single individual could be found from the whole of mankind free from some form of insanity. The only difference is one of degree. A man who sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is called insane because this happens to very few people.”

“There are some whose only reason for inciting war is to use it as a means to exercise their tyranny over their subjects more easily. For in times of peace the authority of the assembly, the dignity of the magistrates, the force of the laws stand in the way to some extent of the ruler doing what he likes. But once war is declared then the whole business of state is subject to the will of a few … They demand as much money as they like. Why say more?”

“What passes out of one’s mouth passes into a hundred ears. It is a great misfortune not to have sense enough to speak well.”

“In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

“There is no joy in possession without sharing.”

“A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit.”

“Picture the prince, such as most of them are today: a man ignorant of the law, well-nigh an enemy to his people’s advantage, while intent on his personal convenience, a dedicated voluptuary, a hater of learning, freedom and truth, without a thought for the interests of his country, and measuring everything in terms of his own profit and desires.”

“Our determination to imitate Christ should be such that we have no time for other matters.”

“Now I believe I can hear the philosophers protesting that it can only be misery to live in folly, illusion, deception and ignorance, but it isn’t-it’s human.”

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau, June 28, 1712 – July 2 1778, was a Swiss-born writer, philosopher, and composer. His philosophy greatly influenced the Age of Enlightenment and French Revolution.

Below we list some words of wisdom from Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

“There are always four sides to a story: your side, their side, the truth and what really happened.”

“The money you have gives you freedom; the money you pursue enslaves you.”

“By doing good we become good.”

“What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?”

“It is hard to prevent oneself from believing what one so keenly desires.”

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

“People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.”

“Once you teach people to say what they do not understand, it is easy enough to get them to say anything you like.”

“Trust your heart rather than your head.”

“No one is happy unless he respects himself.”

“Plants are shaped by cultivation and men by education. We are born weak, we need strength; we are born totally unprovided, we need aid; we are born stupid, we need judgment. Everything we do not have at our birth and which we need when we are grown is given us by education.”

“Socrates dies with honor, surrounded by his disciples listening to the most tender words -the easiest death that one could wish to die. Jesus dies in pain, dishonor, mockery, the object of universal cursing – the most horrible death that one could fear. At the receipt of the cup of poison, Socrates blesses him who could not give it to him without tears; Jesus, while suffering the sharpest pains, prays for His most bitter enemies. If Socrates lived and died like a philosopher, Jesus lived and died like a god.”

“Do not base your life on the judgments of others; first, because they are as likely to be mistaken as you are, and further, because you cannot know that they are telling you their true thoughts.”

“The only moral lesson which is suited for a child–the most important lesson for every time of life–is this: ‘Never hurt anybody.’”

“All kinds of frankness and honesty are terrible crimes in the eyes of society.”

“Social man lives constantly outside himself.”

“Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.”

“Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect.”

“Do not judge, and you will never be mistaken.”

“Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.”

“Conscience is the voice of the soul, the passions are the voice of the body. Is it astonishing that often these two languages contradict each other, and then to which must we listen? Too often reason deceives us; we have only too much acquired the right of refusing to listen to it; but conscience never deceives us; it is the true guide of man; it is to man what instinct is to the body; which follows it, obeys nature, and never is afraid of going astray.”

“Your first duty is to be humane. Love childhood. Look with friendly eyes on its games, its pleasures, its amiable dispositions. Which of you does not sometimes look back regretfully on the age when laughter was ever on the lips and the heart free of care? Why steal from the little innocents the enjoyment of a time that passes all too quickly?”

“The one thing we do not know is the limit of the knowable.”

“I perceive God everywhere in His works. I sense Him in me; I see Him all around me.”

“The visible order of the universe proclaims a supreme intelligence.”

“Had I no other proof of the immortality of the soul than the oppression of the just and the triumph of the wicked in this world, this alone would prevent my having the least doubt of it. So shocking a discord amidst a general harmony of things would make me naturally look for a cause; I should say to myself we do not cease to exist with this life; everything reassumes its order after death.”

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Adam Smith (June 5, 1723 – July 17, 1790) was a Scottish philosopher and economist who is widely considered to be one of the fathers of capitalism and economics. He was also a key figure of the Scottish Enlightenment.

Below we list some words of wisdom from Adam Smith.

“The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.”

“On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.”

“Nothing is more graceful than habitual cheerfulness.”

“Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself.”

“Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.”

“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.”

“Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.”

“What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience?”

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow citizens.”

“Men of the most robust make, observe that in looking upon sore eyes they often feel a very sensible soreness in their own, which proceeds from the same reason; that organ being in the strongest man more delicate, than any other part of the body is in the weakest.”

“To feel much for others and little for ourselves, that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent affections, constitutes the perfection of human nature.”

“In ease of body, peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level and the beggar who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.”

“The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be… The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough.”

“The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the students, but for the interest, or more properly speaking, for the ease of the masters. Its object is, in all cases, to maintain the authority of the master, and whether he neglects or performs his duty, to oblige the students in all cases to behave toward him as if he performed it with the greatest diligence and ability.”

“We are delighted to find a person who values us as we value ourselves, and distinguishes us from the rest of mankind, with an attention not unlike that with which we distinguish ourselves.”

“Though our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at ease, our senses will never inform us of what he suffers. They never did and never can carry us beyond our own persons, and it is by the imagination only that we form any conception of what are his sensations…His agonies, when they are thus brought home to ourselves, when we have this adopted and made them our own, begin at last to affect us, and we then tremble and shudder at the thought of what he feels.”

“Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for a defense, and for a defense only! It is the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence.”

“Problems worthy of attacks, prove their worth by hitting back.”

“This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts.”

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Soren Kierkegaard (May 5th, 1813 – November 11th, 1855) was a Danish philosopher, theologian, social critic, poet, and religious author who many consider to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical works on organized religion, morality, ethics, psychology, and the philosophy of religion.

Below we list some words of wisdom by Soren Kierkegaard.

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

“It is better to try something and fail than to try nothing and succeed. The result may be the same, but you won’t be. We always grow more through defeats than victories.”

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”

“People settle for a level of despair they can tolerate and call it happiness.”

“I found I had less and less to say, until finally, I became silent, and began to listen. I discovered in the silence, the voice of God”

“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.”

“In a theatre it happened that a fire started off stage. The clown came out to tell the audience. They thought it was a joke and applauded. He told them again, and they became still more hilarious. This is the way, I suppose, that the world will be destroyed-amid the universal hilarity of wits and wags who think it is all a joke.”

“Geniuses are like thunderstorms: they go against the wind, terrify people, clear the air.”

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”

“It’s better to get lost in the passion than to lose the passion”

“Take a chance and you may lose. Take not a chance and you have lost already.”

“Christ was crucified because he would have nothing to do with the crowd (even though he addressed himself to all). He did not want to form a party, an interest group, a mass movement, but wanted to be what he was, the truth, which is related to the single individual. Therefore everyone who will genuinely serve the truth is by that very fact a martyr. To win a crowd is no art; for that only untruth is needed, nonsense, and a little knowledge of human passions. But no witness to the truth dares to get involved with the crowd.”

“It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand.”

“If I could prescribe only one remedy for all the ills of the modern world, I would prescribe silence.”

“The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you’ll never have.”

“The unhappy person is never present to themself because they always live in the past or the future.”

“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.”

“The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.”

“Who am I? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted?”

“The door to happiness opens outward.”

“Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.”

“Wherever there is a crowd there is untruth.”

“The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.”

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”

“In order to help another effectively, I must understand what he understands. If I do not know that, my greater understanding will be of no help to him… instruction begins when you put yourself in his place so that you may understand what he understands and in the way he understands it.”

“And this is the simple truth – that to live is to feel oneself lost. He who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce.”

“It is not the path which is the difficulty; rather, it is the difficulty which is the path.”

“The greatest danger to Christianity is, I contend, not heresies, not heterodoxies, not atheists, not profane secularism – no, but the kind of orthodoxy which is cordial drivel, mediocrity served up sweet. There is nothing that so insidiously displaces the majestic as cordiality.”

“The minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion.”

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

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