Human life must be some kind of mistake
The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy
Reading is thinking with someone else's head instead of ones own
The world is filled with misery and pain; if a man escapes these, boredeom lies in wait for him at every corner
Fate is cruel and mankind pitiable
A man is never happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something that he thinks will make him so
Life was never anything more than a present moment always vanishing
To be alone is the fate of all great minds
The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness
With people of only moderate ability, modesty is mere honesty; but with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy
It would be a good thing to buy books if one could also buy the time in which to read them
Hatred comes from the heart, contempt from the head; and neither feeling is quite within our control
In our part of the world where monogamy is the rule, to marry means to halve one’s rights and double one’s duties
If we were not all of us exaggeratedly interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that no one could endure it
Will without intellect is the most vulgar and common thing in the world
Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right
The difficulty is to teach the multitude that something can be both true and untrue at the same time
Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect
Every time a man is born, the clock of human life is wound up anew to repeat once more its same old tune
Life is a business that does not cover the costs
Intellect is invisible to the man who has none
