The inconveniences and horrors of the pox are perfectly well known to every one; but still the disease flourishes and spreads. Several million people were killed in a recent war and half the world ruined; but we all busily go on in courses that make another event of the same sort inevitable. Experientia docet? Experientia doesn't.

People will insist on treating the mons Veneris as though it were Mount Everest. Too silly!

The world is an illusion, but an illusion which we must take seriously.

There is something curiously boring about somebody else's happiness.

...most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution.

Europe is so well gardened that it resembles a work of art, a scientific theory, a neat metaphysical system. Man has re-created Europe in his own image.

Everyone who wants to do good to the human race always ends in universal bullying.