Now the pessimist proper is the most modest of men. ... under no circumstances does he presume to imagine that he, a mere unit of pain, can in any degree change or soften the remorseless words of fate.

Laughter springs from the lawless part of our nature.

It is in his pleasure that a man really lives.

This is the sphinx of the hearthstone, the little god of domesticity, whose presence turns a house into a home.

The diseases of the present have little in common with the diseases of the past save that we die of them.

The pessimist is seldom an agitating individual. His creed breeds indifference to others, and he does not trouble himself to thrust his views upon the unconvinced.

The clear-sighted do not rule the world, but they sustain and console it.