"The quest for philosophy's beginning is idle, for everywhere in all beginnings we find only the crude, the unformed, the empty, and the ugly. What matters in all things is the higher levels."

"He who has much to proclaim one day, stays silently much immersed within himself: he who has to kindle the lightning one day, must for a long time--be a cloud."

"Although the most acute judges of the witches, & even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was nonexistent. It is thus with all guilt."

"But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!"

"How people keep correcting us when we are young! There is always some bad habit or other they tell us we ought to get over. Yet most bad habits are tools to help us through life."

"I mistrust all systemizers and avoid them. The will to a system is a lack of integrity."

"Virtue has its own reward, but no box office."

"Those whom we support hold us up in life."

"The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist."

"The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep."

"Knowledge is a comfortable and necessary retreat and shelter for us in advanced age, and if we do not plant it while young, it will give us no shade when we grow old."

"It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day to day basis."