“No one can become really educated without having pursued some study in which he took no interest — for it is a part of education to interest ourselves in subjects for which we have no aptitude.”

“We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat may be the preface to our successors' victory, though that victory itself will be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than in the expectation that it will triumph.”

“Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

“April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.”

“Do I dare disturb the universe?”

“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”

“There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.”

“Nonviolence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed.”

“There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for.”

“For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best. So, let us be alert — alert in a twofold sense: Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.”

“If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death.”

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”