Albin > Albin's Quotes

“Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you.”
― Machiavelli Niccolo, The Prince

“Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.”
― C.G. Jung

“What if everything in the world were a misunderstanding, what if laughter were really tears?”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good. Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“Women are the most charitable creatures, and the most troublesome. He who shuns women passes up the trouble, but also the benefits. He who puts up with them gains the benefits, but also the trouble. As the saying goes, there's no honey without bees.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, Mandragola

“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you'll never have.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit.”
― Erasmus

“A good portion of speaking will consist in knowing how to lie.”
― Erasmus Roterdamus

“Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Niemand ist mehr Sklave, als der sich für frei hält, ohne es zu sein.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities

“By seeking and blundering we learn.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“I have so much in me, and the feeling for her absorbs it all; I have so much, and without her it all comes to nothing.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“No one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going, act as rarely as they do according to genuine motives, and are as thoroughly governed as they are by biscuits and cake and the rod.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“Sometimes I don't understand how another can love her, is allowed to love her, since I love her so completely myself, so intensely, so fully, grasp nothing, know nothing, have nothing but her!”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations — one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it — you will regret both.”
― Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

“To venture causes anxiety, but not to venture is to lose one's self.... And to venture in the highest is precisely to be conscious of one's self.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“It is impossible to exist without passion”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

“What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“Can you no longer see a road to freedom? It's right in front of you. You need only turn over your wrists.”
― Seneca

“How can you hide from what never goes away?”
― Heraclitus

“If then, if you have lived in despair, then whatever else you won or lost, for you everything is lost, eternity does not acknowledge you, it never knew you, or, still more dreadful, it knows you as you are known, it manacles you to your self in despair.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening

“Almost nothing material is needed for a happy life, for he who has understood existence.”
― Marcus Aurelius

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations