"There are two ways not to suffer from poverty. The first is to acquire more wealth. The second is to limit your requirements. The first is not always within our power, but the second is always in our power."

"It is difficult if not impossible to find some reasonable limit for acquiring more and more property."

"Wealth will no give you satisfaction. The more your wealth grows, the more your requirements grow with it."

"People jump back and forth in pursuit of pleasures only because they see the emptiness of their lives more clearly than they do the emptiness of whichever new entertainment attracts them."

"The strongest proof that in the name of “science” we pursue unworthy and sometimes even harmful things is the existence of a science of punishment."

"The further you progress, the higher the ideal of perfection toward which you strive rises."

"Goodness lies in constantly striving for perfection."

"The closer people are to the truth, the more tolerant they are of the mistakes of others."

"Soldiers who stand idle in a shelter during a battle as reinforcements will try to involve themselves in almost any activity in order to distract themselves from the impending danger. It seems to me that people who want to save themselves from life behave like these soldiers: some distract themselves with vanity, some with cards, politics, laws, women, gambling, horses, hunting, wine, or state affairs."

"Until they throw the money changers out of the temple of art, it will never be a real temple."

"You [may] not sell your talent, your genius; as soon as you do, you are a prostitute. You [may] sell your work, but not your soul."

"True art comes out of an artist’s urgent need to express the feelings that have formed inside him, just as a mother needs to give birth to her baby. False art answers only to profit."

"Real art can only rarely be created even by a real artist; like a child in a mother’s womb, it is the ripened fruit of his prior life. False art, though, can be ceaseless produced by craftsmen, according to the dictates of a market."

"The creation and sale of most art today is pure prostitution."

"As soon as the higher ideal is put before us, all false ideals will fade away as the stars fade away when they meet the sun."

"The way to fame goes thorough the palaces, the way to happiness does through the markets, the way to virtue goes through the deserts."

"When you feel the desire for power, you should stay in solitude for some time."

"A person who knows all sciences but does not know himself is a poor and ignorant person."

"In order to be just, you should make a self-sacrifice, be unjust to yourself."

"Justice is achieved not in striving for justice, but with love."

"Mysterious language is not a sign of wisdom. The wiser a person is, the simpler the language he uses to express his thoughts."

"One hour of honest, serious thinking is more precious than weeks spent in empty talk."

"You should not be upset by the sight of wisdom being criticized. Wisdom would not be wisdom if it did not reveal the stupidity of a bad life, and people would not be people if they endured this revelation without criticism."

"If you suffer misfortunes in your life, look for their cause, not in your actions, but in the thoughts which inspired them, and try to improve these thoughts."

"If we think every word in every holy book is true, then we have created an idol."

"For the majority of mankind, religion is a habit, or, more precisely, tradition is their religion. Though it seems strange, I think that the first step to moral perfection is your liberation from the religion in which you were raised. Not a single person has come to perfection except by following this way."

"As rules go, “You should behave just as other people behave” is among the most dangerous; it almost always results in your behaving badly."

"Repentance always precedes perfection."

"People know little, because they try to understand those things which are not open to them for understanding: God, eternity, spirit; or those things which are not worth thinking about: how hot water becomes frozen, or a new theory of numbers, or how viruses can transmit illnesses. How to live your life is the only real knowledge."

"Those people speak most who do not have much to say."

"A person is higher than an animal because of his ability to speak, but he is lower than an animal if he cannot properly use this ability."

"Wise consumption is much more complicated than wise production."

"In the world today, real faith has in most case been re-placed by public opinion."

"Do not fear the lack of knowledge, fear false knowledge."

"Pay bad people with you goodness; fight their hatred with you kindness. Even if you do not achieve victory over other people, you will conquer yourself."

"Follow the best way of life you possibly can, and habit will make this way suitable and pleasant to you."

"Everything about our present system of punishments and about all criminal law will be thought of by future generations in the same way that we think of cannibalism or human sacrifice to the pagan gods. “How did they not see the uselessness and cruelty of those things which they did?” our descendents will say about us."

"Every punishment is based, not on logic or the feeling of justice, but on the desire to wish evil on those who have done evil to you or to another person."

"A person has done evil, so another person, or a group of people, in order to fight this evil, cannot think of anything better than to create another evil, which they call punishment."

"When you have no freedom, then your life becomes the life of an animal."

"Real science studies and makes accessible that knowledge which people at that period of history think important, and real art transfers this truth from the domain of knowledge to the domain of feelings."

"You cannot do anything wonderful driven by competition; you cannot do anything noble from pride."

"A work of art makes a great impression on us only when it gives us something which, even with all the efforts of our intellect, we cannot understand completely."

"Life is gives to us in the same way as a child is given to a nanny, so that is can be raised to maturity."

"Every truth has its origin in God. When it is manifested in a man, this in not because it comes from him, but because he has such a quantity of transparency that he can reveal it."

"Instead of saving humanity, every person should save himself."

"When everything you see appears in dark, gloomy shades, and seems baleful, and you want to tell others only bad and unpleasant things, do not trust your perceptions. Treat yourself as though you were drunk. Take no steps and actions until this state has disappeared."