You can do what you will: but at each given moment of your life you can will only one determined thing and by no means anything other than this one.

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.

The bank of love is never bankrupt.

It’s in the past. I can’t control what they did, only how I react to it. I’m not going to change who I am because of what some jack offs think of me.

If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.

I lament the want of a liberal education. I feel the mist of ignorance to surround me - Nathanael Greene

The optimistic side of me hopes that the majority of people look at what's going on in politics today and in the world, in general, and just say, "We've had enough."

Cleverness is a burden after that. You are supposed to settle down and be a good person, raise your children, and be good to your friends, which you may not have been back when you were clever.

The question of how things will settle down is the only important question.

For my wife and I, our first child was really easy to have, but our second one was really hard to have. We had to go to a lot of fertility clinics and do that whole thing.

Failure is... the highway to success.

I try to live [the Golden Rule] and I certainly expect it of some particular others. But I'll be damned if I want most folk out there to do unto me what they do unto themselves.