Our first ideas of life are generally taken from fiction rather than fact.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.

Genius and madness have something in common: both live in a world that is different from that which exists for everyone else.

A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.

Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine.

Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

If there is no struggle there is no progress.

He asked her for coffee, but she wanted tea instead.

The living and efficaciously acting moral order is itself God. We require no other God, nor can we grasp any other.

Sacrifice” and “self” both begin with the same letter, but the spelling is way different after that.

Always have a sense of humor about life - you'll need it - but always be courteous to boot.

Earth is a flower and it's pollinating.

Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

Students undergo a conversion in the third year of medical school - not pre-clinical to clinical, but pre-cynical to cynical.

one would suffer a great deal to be happy.

What I am interested in is the present time