“My feelings, gratitude, for instance, are denied me simply because of my social position.”

“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”

“One may be humble out of pride. ”

““Crying is not a prescription. It’s not a feat. It’s just a simple act. No one should be forced to shed tears. The only thing that matters is not to belittle the misfortune of others.””

“What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourselves!”

“The mind is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not discreetly how to use it. ”

“Physiologists and molecular biologists regularly fall into the trap of overlooking this distinction, which is fundamental to biology, history, and human behavior. Physiology and molecular biology can do no more than identify proximate mechanisms; only evolutionary biology can provide ultimate causal explanations.”

“No limits but the sky.”

“Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.”

““It’s all about the mask you wear to fit into a given situation. We all have several different masks. Having one at work and one at home isn’t that unusual. And another one for visiting the in-laws, perhaps.””

“You will find rest from vain fancies if you perform every act in life as though it were your last.”

“The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to know how to live to purpose. ”

“Throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people we most despise.”

“The more cunning a man is, the less he suspects that he will be caught in a simple thing. The more cunning a man is, the simpler the trap he must be caught in.”

“Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.”

“The truth is that as soon as we are no longer obliged to earn our living, we no longer know what to do with our life and recklessly squander it.”

“The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!”

“Minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort.”

“The intelligence of the universe is social.”

“If we do not watch, we lose our opportunities; if we do not make haste, we are left behind.”

““I am dirty, Milena, endlessly dirty, that is why I make such a fuss about cleanliness. None sing as purely as those in deepest hell; it is their singing we take for the singing of angels.” (26 August 1920)”

“Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.”

“She dealt with moral problems the way a cleaver deals with meat: and in this case she had made up her mind.”

“It is a comfort not to be mistaken at all points.”

“The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity. It’s one thing to say I’m the type of person who wants this. It’s something very different to say I’m the type of person who is this.”

“ “In order to change an existing imagined order, we must first believe in an alternative imagined order.””

“Woman was God's second mistake.”

“He that knows not what the world is, knows not where he is himself. He that knows not for what he was made, knows not what he is nor what the world is.”

“If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

“There are men that will make you books, and turn them loose into the world, with as much dispatch as they would do a dish of fritters.”