The worst outcrop of herd life [is] the military system, which I abhor.  That a man can take pleasure in marching in fours to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him.  He has only been given his big brain by mistake; unprotected spinal marrow was all he needed.  This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed.  Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!  How vile and despicable war seems to me!  I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business.

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.  It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of all true art and science.

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.  It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of all true art and science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.  It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion.  A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity;  in this sense, and, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.

The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life.

I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves.  Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts.

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.

How strange is the lot of us mortals!  Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he senses it.  But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people - first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies are bound by the ties of sympathy.

My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities.  I am truly a "lone traveler" and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude - feelings which increase with the years.

I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves - the ethical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty.  The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth.