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ai quotes from influential philosophers, authors and people
"The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race….It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded."
279
"The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I’m not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. Unless you have direct exposure to groups like Deepmind, you have no idea how fast—it is growing at a pace close to exponential. The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five-year time frame. 10 years at most."
280
"I don’t want to really scare you, but it was alarming how many people I talked to who are highly placed people in AI who have retreats that are sort of ‘bug out’ houses, to which they could flee if it all hits the fan."
281
"Artificial intelligence will reach human levels by around 2029. Follow that out further to, say, 2045, we will have multiplied the intelligence, the human biological machine intelligence of our civilization a billion-fold."
282
"Nobody phrases it this way, but I think that artificial intelligence is almost a humanities discipline. It’s really an attempt to understand human intelligence and human cognition."
283
"I see mind uploading as a gradual decades-long process of incremental neuronal replacements, exocortices, interlinking with AGIs and the Global Brain, some presently unseen trials and errors, but overall non-invasive and seamless process, at the end of which, we all will morph into 'substrate-independent' immortal digital minds."
292
"At the early stage of transition to the radically superintelligent civilization, we may use the Naturalization Protocol simulations to teach AGIs our human norms and values, and ultimately interlink with them to form the globally distributed Syntellect, civilizational superintelligence."
293
"I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted."
294
"By far the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it."
295
"In this era of fake news and paid news artificial intelligence is more and more used as a political tool to manipulate and dictate common people, through big data, biometric data, and AI analysis of online profiles and behaviors in social media and smart phones. But the days are not far when AI will also control the politicians and the media too."
296
"Why can't you summon a command line and search your real-world home for 'Honda car keys,' and specify rooms in your house to search instead of folders or paths in your computer's home directory? It's a crippling design flaw in the real-world interface."
297
"Machine intelligence is the last invention that humanity will ever need to make."
298
"In the long term, artificial intelligence and automation are going to be taking over so much of what gives humans a feeling of purpose."
299
"We are entering a new world. The technologies of machine learning, speech recognition, and natural language understanding are reaching a nexus of capability. The end result is that we’ll soon have artificially intelligent assistants to help us in every aspect of our lives."
300
"Anything that could give rise to smarter-than-human intelligence—in the form of Artificial Intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, or neuroscience-based human intelligence enhancement – wins hands down beyond contest as doing the most to change the world. Nothing else is even in the same league."
301
"The singularity is near."
386
"The singularity is the point at which exponential growth becomes infinite and technology becomes indistinguishable from magic."
387
"The singularity is when we create superintelligence and it becomes the last invention that humanity needs to make."
388
"The singularity is the ultimate escape hatch from the human condition."
389
"The singularity is the inevitable result of the ever-increasing rate of technological progress."
390
"The singularity represents the point of no return, when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence and becomes capable of self-improvement."
391
"The singularity is the ultimate black swan event - a technological revolution that will change the course of human history forever."
392
"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment."
6
"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live."
16
"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality."
17
"While we wait for life, life passes."
19
"Life is long, if you know how to use it."
20
"Only time can heal what reason cannot."
23
"While we are postponing, life speeds by."
24
"It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness."
27
"If you lay violent hands on me, you’ll have my body, but my mind will remain with Stilpo."
31
"Happiness is a good flow of life."
32
"A bad feeling is a commotion of the mind repugnant to reason, and against nature."
33
"Well-being is realized by small steps, but is truly no small thing."
34
"Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it."
36
"If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, 'He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.'"
43
"Fate is a sempiternal and unchangeable series and chain of things, rolling and unraveling itself through eternal sequences of cause and effect, of which it is composed and compounded."
44
"I myself think that the wise man meddles little or not at all in affairs and does his own things."
46
"The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers."
55
"Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain."
56
"Dreams are the guiding words of the soul. Why should I henceforth not love my dreams and not make their riddling images into objects of my daily consideration?"
57
"We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learnt to bear its ills without being overcome by them."
62
"Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the center of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest."
82
"Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors."
84
"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."
87
"The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom."
89
"Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life."
95
"Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour."
97
"He who possesses most is most afraid to lose."
102
"He who walks straight rarely falls."
105
"Man is worthy of praise and blame solely in respect of such actions as it is within his power to do or abstain from."
106
"The memory of benefits is frail as against ingratitude."
109
"Reprove a friend in secret but praise him before others."
110
"...go away and have a little relaxation; for when you come back to the work your judgement will be surer, since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose the power of judgement."
117
"When was the last time you sought knowledge simply for the pursuit of truth? What did you gain from this effort? Think of the people you know. Do any of them strike you as embodying the ideals of Curiositá? How are their lives enriched by this?"
119
"Great minds ask great questions. The questions that engage our thought on a daily basis reflect our life purpose and influence the quality of our lives."
120
"The happiest people in the world ask, 'What if I could find some way to get paid for doing what I love?'"
121
"A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty."
122
"First, you must see your attempt at attaining mastery as something extremely necessary and positive... Second, you must convince yourself of the following: people get the mind and quality of brain that they deserve through their actions in life."
126
"Anything that is alive is in a continual state of change and movement. The moment that you rest, thinking that you have attained the level you desire, a part of your mind enters a phase of decay."
128
"At your birth a seed is planted. That seed is your uniqueness. It wants to grow, transform itself, and flower to its full potential. It has a natural, assertive energy to it. Your Life's Task is to bring that seed to flower, to express your uniqueness through your work."
130
"The process of realizing your Life's Task comes in three stages: First, you must connect with your inclinations, that sense of uniqueness. The first step then is always inward. You search the past for signs of that inner voice or force. You clear away the other voices that might confuse you- parents and peers. You look for an underlying pattern, a core to your character that you must understand as deeply as possible."
131
"..the initial stages of learning a skill invariably involve tedium. Yet rather than avoiding this inevitable tedium, you must accept and embrace it. The pain and boredom we experience in the initial stage of learning a skill toughens our minds, much like physical exercise."
137
"Too many people believe that everything must be pleasurable in life, which makes them constantly search for distractions and short-circuits the learning process. The pain is a kind of challenge your mind presents- will you lean how to focus and move past the boredom, or like a child will you succumb to the need for immediate pleasure and distraction?"
138
"Let us be careful in dealing with those who attach great importance to being credited with moral tact and subtlety in moral discernment! They never forgive us if they have once made a mistake BEFORE us- they inevitably become our instinctive calumniators and detractors, even when they still remain our 'friends.'"
147
"The man of 'modern ideas', the conceited ape, is excessively dissatisfied with himself- this is perfectly certain. He suffers, and his vanity wants him only 'to suffer with his fellows.'"
150
"Learning alters us, it does what all nourishment does that does not merely 'conserve'--as the physiologist knows. But at the bottom of our souls, quite 'down below,' there is certainly something unteachable, a granite of spiritual fate, of predetermined decision and answer to predetermined, chosen questions."
151
"Understand: people will constantly attack you in life. One of their main weapons will be to instill in you doubts about yourself – your worth, your abilities, your potential. They will often disguise this as their objective opinion, but invariably it has a political purpose – they want to keep you down."
155
"Genuinely innocent people may still be playing for power, and are often horribly effective at the game, since they are not hindered by reflection. Once again, those who make a show or display of innocence are the least innocent of all."
159
"It's in responsibility that most people find the meaning that sustains them through life. It's not in happiness. It's not in impulsive pleasure."
168
"Well done is better than well said."
186
"I didn't fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong."
191
"Leisure is the time for doing something useful. This leisure the diligent person will obtain the lazy one never."
195
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change, that lives within the means available and works co-operatively against common threats."
198
"Strain, I now accepted, was good. Instead of seeing discomfort as a sensation to avoid, I began to understand it the same way that a body builder understands muscle burn: a sign that you're doing something right."
203
"A good career mission is similar to a scientific breakthrough - it's an innovation waiting to be discovered in the adjacent possible of your field. If you want to identify a mission for your working life, therefore, you must first get to the cutting edge - the only place where these missions become visible."
208
"For one who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his mind will remain the greatest enemy."
209
"The brain breathes mind like the lungs breathe air."
218
"Talent praise only reinforces the notion that success or failure rests on an inborn, unchangeable, static, and stagnant trait. Process praise applauds the effort and work - the action that's taken to get to the next step. You want to reinforce the idea that talent is unimportant, whereas effort is everything."
227
"It is mildly disconcerting to reflect that the whole of meaningful human history - the development of farming, the creation of towns, the rise of mathematics and writing and science and all the rest - has taken place within an atypical patch of fair weather. Previous interglacials have lasted as little as eight thousand years. Our own has already passed its ten-thousandth anniversary."
231
"Don’t fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail."
244
"Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away."
250
"Code is like humor. When you have to explain it, it’s bad."
251
"If you’re waiting for encouragement from others, you’re doing it wrong. By the time people think an idea is good, it’s probably too late."
257
"One hundred years from now, our engineering may seem as archaic as the techniques used by medieval cathedral builders seem to today’s civil engineers, while our craftsmanship will still be honored."
266
"If you don’t hear any complaints from users, they are not using the software – or your support email is broken."
272
"Periodic reminder that the tech stack you use to ship a product only matters to other devs. End users only care that it’s fast enough and does enough to let them get work done. That is your top priority as a dev. Ship working maintainable things that solve people’s problems."
275
"Some people are good programmers because they can handle many more details than most people. But there are a lot of disadvantages in selecting programmers for that reason — it can result in programs that no one else can maintain."
278
"When you turn your back on the voices of those who are in pain and who are angry, you breed hate. Love is the way out, not hate."
284
"Truth is a process not a final destination. The former requires humility and curiosity. The latter dogmatic certainty. There’s always more nuance and wisdom to discover, through empathy and reason."
285
"Complain less. Build more."
289
"All generalizations are false, including this one."
302
"Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance."
305
"Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt. We experience it as an energy field radiating from a work-in-potential. It's a repelling force. It's negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work."
306
"Like a magnetized needle floating on a surface of oil, Resistance will unfailingly point to true North - meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing. We can use this. We can use it as a compass. We can navigate by Resistance, letting it guide us to that calling or action that we must follow before all others."
308
"When we drug ourselves to blot out our soul's call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers. We're doing exactly what TV commercials and pop materialist culture have been brainwashing us to do from birth. Instead of applying self-knowledge, self-discipline, delayed gratification and hard work, we simply consume a product."
314
"Doctors estimate that seventy to eighty percent of their business is non-health-related. People aren't sick, they're self-dramatizing. Sometimes the hardest part of a medical job is keeping a straight face. As Jerry Seinfeld observed of his twenty years of dating: 'That's a lot of acting fascinated.'"
315
"A man must live conformably to the universal nature, which means, as the emperor explains it in many passages, that a man's actions must be conformable to his true relations to all other human beings, both as a citizen of a political community and as a member of the whole human family."
345
"Happiness was not the direct object of a Stoic's life. There is no rule of life contained in the precept that a man should pursue his own happiness. Many men think that they are seeking happiness when they are only seeking the gratification of some particular passion, the strongest that they have."
347
"The end of a man is, as already explained, to live conformably to nature, and he will thus obtain happiness, tranquility of mind, and contentment."
348
"As soon as man was capable of conceiving the idea of sin, he had recourse to psychic concealment - or, to put it in analytical language, repressions arose. Anything that is concealed is a secret. The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates their possessor from the community."
349
"It is probable that one form of neurosis is conditioned by the predominance of secrets, and another by the predominance of restrained emotions."
352
"How can I be substantial if I fail to cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also if I am to be whole; and inasmuch as I become conscious of my shadow I also remember that I am a human being like any other."
354
"I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time."
377
"A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all."
382
"Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think."
398
"Do not waste what remains of your life in speculating about your neighbors, unless with a view to some mutual benefit."
415
"The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time."
418
"Joy is only a symptom of the feeling of obtained power. One does not strive for joy… joy accompanies."
420
"And life itself confided the secret to me: behold, it said, I am that which must always overcome itself."
424
"Water is the softest thing, yet it can penetrate mountains and earth. This shows clearly the principle of softness overcoming hardness."
509
"To attain knowledge, add things everyday. To attain wisdom, remove things every day."
511
"Be still like a mountain, and flow like a great river."
520
"Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires."
523
"If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve."
533
"New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings."
540
"The conscious mind may be compared to a fountain playing in the sun and falling back into the great subterranean pool of subconscious from which it rises."
560
"Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair."
562
"Learning is not child’s play; we cannot learn without pain."
593
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
602
"Education is not the learning of facts, it’s rather the training of the mind to think."
605
"Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school."
613
"We are twice armed if we fight with faith."
620
"And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul."
623
"There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain."
633
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."
641
"Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge."
643
"There’s a tremendous bias against taking risks. Everyone is trying to optimize their ass-covering."
660
"When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars, people said, ‘Nah, what's wrong with a horse?’ That was a huge bet he made, and it worked."
661
"You get paid in direct proportion to the difficulty of problems you solve."
675
"Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough."
677
"If you want to know who controls you, look at who you are not allowed to criticize."
681
"Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it."
682
"Judge of a man by his questions rather than by his answers."
683
"Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well."
684
"Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too."
685
"Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game."
686
"The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing."
687
"Every man is guilty of all the good he didn’t do."
688
"Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination."
689
"When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion."
690
"Don’t think money does everything or you are going to end up doing everything for money."
691
"May God defend me from my friends: I can defend myself from my enemies."
692
"Give me the patience for the small things of life, courage for the great trials of life. Help me to do my best each day and then go to sleep knowing God is awake."
693
"God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well."
694
"The right to free speech is more important than the content of the speech."
695
"I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it."
696
"Dare to think for yourself."
697
"Beware of the words 'internal security,' for they are the eternal cry of the oppressor."
698
"Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world."
699
"Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road."
700
"It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong."
701
"It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one."
702
"It is not inequality which is the real misfortune, it is dependence."
703
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
704
"In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another."
705
"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."
706
"It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster."
707
"Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all; and others, to persecute those who do reason."
708
"Life is too short, time too valuable, to spend it on what is useless."
709
"The pursuit of what is true and the practice of what is good are the two most important objects of philosophy."
710
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."
711
"The more you read without thinking, the more you think you know a lot but the more you meditate, the more you see that you know very little."
712
"Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats."
713
"The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us."
714
"The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood."
715
"Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need."
716
"The mirror is a worthless invention. The only way to truly see yourself is in the reflection of someone else’s eyes."
717
"Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference."
718
"Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste."
719
"Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable."
720
"Faith consists in believing what reason cannot."
721
"Common sense is not so common."
722
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value – zero."
723
"The secret of being a bore is to tell everything."
724
"To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered."
725
"Love truth, but pardon error."
726
"The more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it gets the appearance of wisdom."
727
"I don’t know where I am going, but I am on my way."
728
"Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time."
729
"Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?"
730
"It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere."
731
"Prejudices are what fools use for reason."
732
"Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one."
733
"We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies."
734
"The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude."
735
"I’ve decided to be happy because it is good for my health."
736
"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."
745
"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
749
"Don’t be afraid to be ambitious about your goals. Hard work never stops. Neither should your dreams."
753
"I dream my painting and I paint my dream."
756
"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."
771
"We're a generation of men raised by women. I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer we need."
788
"...If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned"
792
"You’ve been given another day of life. How will you use it? Will you wait until tomorrow as you’ve done for years or decide today is the day you commit to excellence?"
794
"Your future is the result of your daily actions. You’re defined by what you do today. Lazy now, loser later. Get to work."
795
"There is no light without dark. There is no joy without pain."
798
"If failure makes you stronger, you can never lose."
799
"Your mindset is the single most important factor in determining your success or failure."
804
"Do the impossible and you’ll never doubt yourself ever again."
812
"Depression is not real. Feeling depressed is real. So, you can feel depressed, but you feel depressed and that is a natural, biological, evolutionary trigger for you to change something in your life. That’s your own mind telling you ‘you’re unhappy about X’. If I went to jail today, I’d be depressed because I’m in jail. I haven’t caught depression, I don’t have a disease, I’m just upset with my situation."
828
"The amount of stress you can tolerate while remaining effective is directly correlated to the level of success you will enjoy."
839
"The only person responsible for your success or failure is you."
844
"People who train every day do not want to train every day. They are not motivated to train every day. They have something else, they are disciplined."
852
"Rights impose no obligations on [neighbors] except of a negative kind: to abstain from violating his rights."
861
"Man holds…rights, not from the Collective nor for the Collective, but against the Collective…man’s protection against all other men."
866
"Since the only proper function of a government is to protect man’s rights, it cannot claim title to his life in exchange for that protection."
871
"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities."
879
"Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity."
902
"I suppose therefore that all things I see are illusions; I believe that nothing has ever existed of everything my lying memory tells me. I think I have no senses. I believe that body, shape, extension, motion, location are functions. What is there then that can be taken as true? Perhaps only this one thing, that nothing at all is certain."
908
"It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well."
913
"And thus, the actions of life often not allowing any delay, it is a truth very certain that, when it is not in our power to determine the most true opinions we ought to follow the most probable."
915
"For I found myself embarrassed with so many doubts and errors that it seemed to me that the effort to instruct myself had no effect other than the increasing discovery of my own ignorance."
924
"Some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them. I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last."
932
"But I cannot forget that, at other times I have been deceived in sleep by similar illusions; and, attentively considering those cases, I perceive so clearly that there exist no certain marks by which the state of waking can ever be distinguished from sleep, that I feel greatly astonished; and in amazement I almost persuade myself that I am now dreaming."
934
"The only defense against the world is a thorough knowledge of it."
943
"Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves poison the fountain."
945
"Men being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent."
959
"One unerring mark of the love of truth is not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon will warrant."
960
"I had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith."
969
"One who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him."
970
"Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt."
974
"But only he who, himself enlightened, is not afraid of shadows."
980
"Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality."
981
"All false art, all vain wisdom, lasts its time but finally destroys itself, and its highest culture is also the epoch of its decay."
994
"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains."
997
"Those that are most slow in making a promise are the most faithful in the performance of it."
1007
"Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they."
1009
"I have never thought, for my part, that man's freedom consists in his being able to do whatever he wills, but that he should not, by any human power, be forced to do what is against his will."
1012
"I perceive God everywhere in His works. I sense Him in me; I see Him all around me."
1013
"As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State "What does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost."
1017
"It is as if my heart and my brain did not belong to the same person. Feelings come quicker than lightning and fill my soul, but they bring me no illumination; they burn me and dazzle me."
1019
"MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they."
1026
"The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor."
1035
"A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad."
1042
"Truth is mysterious, elusive, always to be conquered. Liberty is dangerous, as hard to live with as it is elating. We must march toward these two goals, painfully but resolutely, certain in advance of our failings on so long a road."
1051
"He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool."
1052
"People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand my complaint about them not understanding me."
1059
"The most common form of despair is not being who you are."
1061
"The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you'll never have."
1066
"In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant… My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known — no wonder, then, that I return the love."
1067
"What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music.... And people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon' - that is, 'May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful."
1068
"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!"
1072
"It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey."
1079
"Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself."
1080
"Any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again."
1081
"Be strong, saith my heart; I am a soldier; I have seen worse sights than this."
1088
"Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away."
1091
"Pain is an inextricable thread in the fabric of life, and to tear it out is not only impossible, but destructive: attempting to tear it out unravels everything else with it. To try to avoid pain is to give too many fucks about pain. In contrast, if you’re able to not give a fuck about the pain, you become unstoppable."
1157
"Being open with your insecurities paradoxically makes you more confident and charismatic around others. The pain of honest confrontation is what generates the greatest trust and respect in your relationships. Suffering through your fears and anxieties is what allows you to build courage and perseverance."
1165
"We suffer for the simple reason that suffering is biologically useful. It is nature’s preferred agent for inspiring change. We have evolved to always live with a certain degree of dissatisfaction and insecurity, because it’s the mildly dissatisfied and insecure creature that’s going to do the most work to innovate and survive."
1166
"No matter where you go, there’s a five-hundred-pound load of shit waiting for you. And that’s perfectly fine. The point isn’t to get away from the shit. The point is to find the shit you enjoy dealing with."
1172
"If you thought that science was certain – well, that is just an error on your part."
1193
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt."
1194
"I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not my failing."
1197
"Love isn't something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn't a feeling, it is a practice."
1202