To abolish war it is necessary to abolish patriotism, and to abolish patriotism it is necessary first to understand that it is an evil. Tell people that patriotism is bad and most will reply, 'Yes, bad patriotism is bad, but mine is good patriotism.'

Something magical has happened to me: like a dream when one feels frightened and creepy, and suddenly wakes up to the knowledge that no such terrors exist. I have wakened up.

Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.

Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.

You consider war to be inevitable? Very good. Let everyone who advocates war be enrolled in a special regiment of advance-guards, for the front of every storm, of every attack, to lead them all!

All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.

Love does not exist. There exists the physical need for intercourse, and the rational need for a mate in life

There is nothing more harmful to you than improving only your material, animal side of life. There is nothing more beneficial, both for you and for others, than activity directed to the improvement of your soul.

He never chooses an opinion; he just wears whatever happens to be in style.

The struggle with evil by means of violence is the same as an attempt to stop a cloud, in order that there may be no rain.

Man by violating his own feelings becomes cruel. And how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life.

I think... if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.

To sin is a human business, to justify sins is a devilish business.

Just when the question of how to live had become clearer to him, a new insoluble problem presented itself - Death.

There is no significant idea which cannot be explained to an intelligent twelve year old boy in fifteen minutes.

It is within my power either to serve God or not to serve Him. Serving Him, I add to my own good and the good of the whole world. Not serving Him, I forfeit my own good and deprive the world of that good, which was in my power to create.