History shows that the human mind, fed by constant accessions of knowledge, periodically grows too large for its theoretical coverings, and bursts them asunder to appear in new habiliments, as the feeding and growing grub, at intervals, casts its too narrow skin and assumes another.... Truly the imago state of Man seems to be terribly distant, but every moult is a step gained.
We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities...still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
In the survival of favoured individuals and races, during the constantly-recurring struggle for existence, we see a powerful and ever-acting form of selection.
The methodological advice to interpret in a way that optimizes agreement should not be conceived as resting on a charitable assumption about human intelligence that might turn out to be false. If we cannot find a way to interpret the utterances and other behaviour of a creature as revealing a set of beliefs largely consistent and true by our standards, we have no reason to count that creature as rational, as having beliefs, or as saying anything.
Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
Love is not enough. It must be the foundation, the cornerstone- but not the complete structure. It is much too pliable, too yielding.
That's the nature of women, not to love when we love them, and to love when we love them not.
de Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier
A great obstacle to happiness is to anticipate too great a happiness.
Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. He imposes his own stamp of action, takes responsibility for it, makes it his own.
If the secret of being a bore is to tell all, the secret of pleasing is to say just enough to be?not understood, but divined.
Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates.
Every government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck.
Action is coarsened thought; thought becomes concrete, obscure, and unconscious.
Even on the most exalted throne in the world we areonly sitting on our own bottom.
When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not more of a pastime to her than she is to me?
de Sade, Donatien Alphonse Francois
My manner of thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care? A poor fool indeed is he who adopts a manner of thinking for others! My manner of thinking stems straight from my considered reflections; it holds with my existence, with the way I am made. It is not in my power to alter it; and were it, I'd not do so.
Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.
Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew.
Men will never establish any equality with which they can be contented. Whatever efforts a people may make, they will never succeed in reducing all the conditions of society to a perfect level.
The opera is like a husband with a foreign title - expensive to support, hard to understand and therefore a supreme social challenge.
You can't make the Duchess of Windsor into Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. The facts of life are very stubborn things.
Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.
As a vessel is known by the sound, whether it be cracked or not; so men are proved, by their speeches, whether they be wise or foolish.
Youth, what man's age is like to be, doth show; We may our ends by our beginnings know.
Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid...for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
The difficulty with marriage is that we fall in love with a personality, but must live with a character.
Complete adaptation to environment means death. The essential point in all response is the desire to control environment.
Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates to invention. It shocks us out of sheeplike passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving.
Independent self people (would be) a counterproductive anachronism in the collective society of the future [...] (where) people will be defined by their associations.
Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy.
Few cross the river of time and are able to reach non-being. Most of them run up and down only on this side of the river. But those who when they know the law follow the path of the law, they shall reach the other shore and go beyond the realm of death.
Do not have evil-doers for friends, do not have low people for friends: have virtuous people for friends, have for friends the best of men.
Speak the truth, do not yield to anger; give, if thou art asked for little; by these three steps thou wilt go near the gods.
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...
There are men steady and wise whose body, words and mind are self-controlled. They are the men of supreme self-control.
Four things does a reckless man gain who covets his neighbor's wife - demerit, an uncomfortable bed, thirdly, punishment, and lastly, hell.