Ever since childhood I've loved quotes. There's just something about these snippets of wisdom and it's a great way to occupy my mind instead of doomscrolling. I'm sharing my favorites here. At this point they are unsorted by topic but that may change in the future. Hope you enjoy. Feel free to email me or put in the Guestbook any of your favorite quotes.

“The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” — Albert Camus

Do you remember that in classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, "How well he spoke" but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, they said, "Let us march." —Adlai Stevenson

“Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.” —Allen Ginsberg

"It is never to be expected in a revolution that every man is to change his opinion at the same moment. There never yet was any truth or any principle so irresistibly obvious that all men believed it at once. Time and reason must cooperate with each other to the final establishment of any principle; and therefore those who may happen to be first convinced have not a right to persecute others, on whom conviction operates more slowly. The moral principle of revolutions is to instruct, not to destroy." —Thomas Paine

"Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself." — Robert G. Ingersoll

"It is ever proof that the falsehood of a proposition is felt by those who use power and coercion, not reasoning and persuasion, to procure its admission." —Percy Bysshe Shelley

"The men who declare that woman is the intellectual inferior of man, do not, and cannot, by offering themselves in evidence, substantiate their declaration." —Robert G. Ingersoll

"To know a person’s religion, we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance." — Eric Hoffer

"When someone is honestly 55% right, that's very good and there's no use wrangling. And if someone is 60% right, it's wonderful, it's great luck, and let him thank God. But what's to be said about 75% right? Wise people say this is suspicious. Well, and what about 100% right? Whoever says he's 100% right is a fanatic, a thug, and the worst kind of rascal." —Czesław Miłosz AN OLD JEW OF GALICIA

"Let us persuade men to be just, beneficent, moderate, sociable; not because the gods demand such conduct, but, because it is pleasant to men" — Baron d' Paul Henri Thiry Holbach

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”― Walt Whitman

"Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again." —Bertolt Brecht Referring to Arturo Ui in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1941)

"Equity knows no difference of sex. In its vocabulary the word man must be understood in a generic, and not in a specific sense."—Herbert Spencer

"I start from the natural rights of the individual, which are co-extensive with his desires and power, and from the fact that no one is bound to live as another pleases but is the guardian of his own liberty and that they best retain this right and secure safety to their state by allowing every man to think what he likes, and say what he thinks." —Baruch Spinoza

“Moderation in forming opinions. Everyone forms ideas as they see fit and has abundant reasons for their views. In most people, judgement yields to feeling. Often two people meet who have opposite views, and each thinks reason is on their side, but reason, ever true, never serves two masters. A wise person should proceed cautiously in such a delicate situation. Cast doubt on your own position and so reform your opinion of your opponent’s. You should see things on occasion from the other’s point of view and examine their reasons. You’ll thereby neither condemn the other person, nor defend yourself so blindly.” — Baltasar Gracián

“Errors do not cease to be errors simply because they’re ratified into law.” ―E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.” —Perecles, Greek Statesman

“If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.”—Voltaire

“If I am a fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.”
—Lord Byron

“The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence. Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look Death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.”—Carl Sagan

“It is amazing to me that a difference of opinion upon subjects that we know nothing with certainty about, should make us hate, persecute, and despise each other.”—Robert G. Ingersoll

“Epicurus’ old questions are yet unanswered. Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?” —David Hume

"The world is made up for the most part of morons and natural tyrants, sure of themselves, strong in their own opinions, never doubting anything."—Clarence S. Darrow

“The first information survival skill we all need is the ability to decode propaganda and demythologize
the highly commercialized and entertainment-based U. S. culture. Psychologists politely call it resistance to enculturation.' Writer Ernest Hemingway had a less elegant term: 'crap detecting.”—Karl Albrecht, article in Training and Development, February 2001

“No system would have ever been framed if people had been simply interested in knowing what is true, whatever it may be. What produces systems is the interest in maintaining against all comers that some favourite or inherited idea of ours is sufficient and right.”—George Santayana

"The crux of the biggest of all persuasion jobs—to persuade millions en masse to buy Coca Cola, to vote for or against a New Deal, or to like or dislike any racial or religious group—is the utilization or creation of conditioned reflexes."—Clyde R. Miller

"Despotism in the home leads to despotism in the state." —Herbert Spencer

“The First Amendment to the United States Constitution encourages a diversity of religions but does not prohibit criticism of religion. In fact it protects and encourages criticism of religion. Religions ought to be subject to at least the same degree of skepticism as, for example, contentions about UFO visitations or Velikovskian catastrophism. I think it is healthy for the religions themselves to foster skepticism about the fundamental underpinnings of their evidential bases. There is no question that religion provides a solace and support, a bulwark in time of emotional need, and can serve extremely useful social roles. But it by no means follows that religion should be immune from testing, from critical scrutiny, from skepticism. It is striking how little skeptical discussion of religion there is in the nation that Tom Paine, the author of The Age of Reason, helped to found. I hold that belief systems that cannot survive scrutiny are probably not worth having.” —Carl Sagan

“A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.” —Albert Einstein (1875-1955)

“Censorship of anything, at any time, in any place, on whatever pretense, has always been and always will be the last resort of the boob and the bigot.” ― Eugene O’Neill

There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. All information is imperfect. We have to treat it with humility. —Jacob Bronowski (1908-1974), The Ascent Of Man

“Every instinct that is found in any man is in all men. The strength of the emotion may not be so overpowering, the barriers against possession not so insurmountable, the urge to accomplish the desire less keen. With some, inhibitions and urges may be neutralized by other tendencies. But with every being the primal emotions are there. All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike some one they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.” ― Clarence Darrow, The Story of My Life

“Persuasion: A species of hypnotism in which the oral suggestion takes the hindering form of argument or appeal.” —Ambrose Bierce

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame." —Oscar Wilde

“I don't think there is any truth. There are only points of view.”  —Allen Ginsberg

“Existentialism is not so much an atheism in the sense that it would exhaust itself attempting to demonstrate the nonexistence of God; rather, it affirms that even if God were to exist, it would make no difference what man needs is to rediscover himself and to comprehend that nothing can save him from himself, not even valid proof of the existence of God.” —Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is A Humanism

"The real "haves" are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence and even riches without depriving others of them. They acquire all of these by developing and applying their potentialities. On the other hand, the real "have nots" are they who cannot have aught except by depriving others of it. They can feel free only by diminishing the freedom of others, self-confident by spreading fear and dependence among others, and rich by making others poor." —Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind

“The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.” —WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827), The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.” —MICHEL de MONTAIGNE (1533-1592), Essays, 1588

“A man who wishes to impose his opinions on others is unsure of their value. He has to uphold them by all possible means. He adopts a special tone of voice, thumps the table, smiles on some and browbeats others. In short, he borrows from his body the wherewithal to bolster up his mind.” —PAUL VALERY (1871-1945), Bad Thoughts and Not So Bad, 1942