Reason deserves to be called a prophet; for in showing us the consequence and effect of our actions in the present, does it not tell us what the future will be?

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.

I nodded, looking at Rachel with respect. "You hit the Lord of the Titans in the eye with a blue plastic hairbrush.

A friend must not be injured even in jest.

Don't expect other nations to have a democracy like ours - they don't have enough lawyers.

So I'm in love. That crazy, forget to eat, float around in a daze, talk on the phone all night and bounce out of bed every morning hoping to see him kind of love.

Follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.

But what we strive to gratify, though we may call it a distant hope, is an immediate desire; the future estate for which men drudge up city alleys exists already in their imagination and love.

Disease is cured by the body itself, not by doctors or remedies.

When's the last time you used duct tape on a duct?

Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.

My business is making people, especially children, happy. I have dedicated much of my time to a study of the problems of children.