I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

We call first truths those we discover after all the others.

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.

If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owning more to patient attention, than to any other talent.

When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.

Man is a universe in little.

The poets and philosophers before me discovered the unconscious; what I discovered was the scientific method by which the unconscious can be studied.

Man can learn nothing unless he proceeds from the known to the unknown.

The heights by great men reached and kept Where not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night.

The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection, even though it consist in nothing more than in the pounding of an old piano, is what alone gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star.

Remember that you ought to behave in life as you would at a banquet. As something is being passed around it comes to you; stretch out your hand, take a portion of it politely. It passes on; do not detain it. Or it has not come to you yet; do not project your desire to meet it, but wait until it comes in front of you. So act toward children, so act toward a wife, so toward office, so toward wealth.

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't.

When I was a child, my mother said to me, "If you become a soldier you'll be a general. If you become a monk you'll end up as the Pope." Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.

Before a man can accomplish anything of an enduring nature in the world, he must first of all acquire some measure of success in the management of his own mind.

Being aware of a single shortcoming within yourself is far more useful than being aware of a thousand in someone else!

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of everything else to which he is justly entitled.

No one can draw more out of things, books included, than he already knows. A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access.

Benevolence is man’s mind, and righteousness is man’s path.

You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.

If you compromise your own conscience, you will weaken your conscience. Soon your conscience will fail to guide you and you never will have real wealth based on peace of mind.

Lie to a liar, for lies are his coin; steal from a thief, for that is easy; lay a trap for a trickster and catch him at first attempt, but beware of an honest man.

We should seek the truth without hesitation; and, if we refuse it, we show that we value the esteem of men more than the search for truth.

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

I propose to raise a revolution against the lie that the majority has the monopoly of the truth.

Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul.

If you cannot be honest with yourself, there is no hope of being honest with anyone else.

For truth itself does not have the privilege to be employed at any time and in every way; its use, noble as it is, has its circumscriptions and limits.