Compact passages

Short philosophy quotes

Brief English renderings selected for clarity. Useful for teaching, journaling, or a first encounter with a thinker.

  1. Go drink tea.
  2. That thou art.
  3. What do I know?
  4. God, or Nature.
  5. Simplify, simplify.
  6. the banality of evil
  7. No one errs willingly.
  8. I searched for myself.
  9. The true is the whole.
  10. All life is suffering.
  11. Resist the beginnings.
  12. Don’t think, but look!
  13. Virtue lies in a mean.
  14. I think, therefore I am.
  15. Every day is a good day.
  16. A friend is another self.
  17. Man is a useless passion.
  18. Learning must never stop.
  19. Ordinary mind is the Way.
  20. Existence precedes essence.
  21. All real living is meeting.
  22. Love, and do what you will.
  23. Claim yourself for yourself.
  24. Faith seeking understanding.
  25. How one becomes what one is.
  26. Man is condemned to be free.
  27. Nothing is without a reason.
  28. We must cultivate our garden.
  29. I rebel — therefore we exist.
  30. Man is a sacred thing to man.
  31. Absolute attention is prayer.
  32. Prayer consists of attention.
  33. If you wish to be loved, love.
  34. For knowledge itself is power.
  35. Men must tolerate one another.
  36. The world is my representation.
  37. Extend the innate good knowing.
  38. Their being is to be perceived.
  39. the best of all possible worlds
  40. Two loves have made two cities.
  41. Man becomes an I through a You.
  42. I am looking for a human being.
  43. He who has begun has half done.
  44. True eloquence mocks eloquence.
  45. Withdraw into yourself and look.
  46. Do not block the way of inquiry.
  47. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
  48. Seek simplicity and distrust it.
  49. Of all things the measure is man.
  50. The true is precisely what is made.
  51. Take up and read; take up and read.
  52. To be great is to be misunderstood.
  53. Man is by nature a political animal.
  54. Compassion is the basis of morality.
  55. Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
  56. Justice is somehow a kind of virtue.
  57. We are not born for ourselves alone.
  58. Despair is a sickness of the spirit.
  59. To philosophize is to be on the way.
  60. Boldly hypothesize; carefully verify.

See also famous quotes, quotes about feeling, and the full archive.