“true weanedness from the world don't consist in being beat off from the world by the affliction of it, but a being drawn off by the sight of something better.”

“Pursue something so important that even if you fail, the world is better off with you having tried.”

“It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.”

“War is at first, the hope that one will be better off; next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that the other fellow isn't any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyone's being worse off.”

“Doth the reality of sensible things consist in being perceived? or, is it something distinct from their being perceived, and that bears no relation to the mind?”

“Did America owe something to the slaves whose labor had been stolen? … That debt…is best discharged through memory, because the slaves are dead and their descendants…are better off as a consequence of their ancestors being hauled from Africa to America.”

“The more of us that feel the universe, the better off we will be in this world.”

“You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage. Besides you don't build a better world by choppin' heads off and giving decent girls away to frogs.”

“It has not yet been recorded that any human being has gained a very large or permanent contentment from meditation upon the fact that he is better off than others.”

“If we [humans] disappeared overnight, the world would probably be better off”