The present is the only reality and the only certainty.

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.

Help them, but don't make friends with them.

Not everyone can see that everything has some beauty.

How do we know that we have a right to kill creatures that we are so little above, as dogs, for our curiosity or even for some use to us?

The labor movement has a great role to play in our country today.

When you come across someone colorful and vibrant maybe in the present it isn't so interesting, but, in the past, it sheds a wonderful light onto living life.

The Sixties were an era of extreme reality. I miss the smell of tear gas. I miss the fear of getting beaten.

After September 11, it became unpatriotic to question any homeland-security or defense spending, and that let things get out of control.

A philosophical problem has the form: I don't know my way about.

The school of hard knocks is an accelerated curriculum.

You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an argument for it.