Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.

The power of love itself weakens and gradually becomes lost with age, like all the other energies of man.

For every monarchy overthrown the sky becomes less brilliant, because it loses a star. A republic is ugliness set free.

That child whose mother has never smiled upon him is worthy neither of the table of the gods nor the couch of the goddesses.

For a man’s life would become intolerable, if he knew what was going to happen to him. He would be made aware of future evils, and would suffer their agonies in advance, while he would get no joy of present blessings since he would know how they would end. Ignorance is the necessary condition of human happiness, and it has to be admitted that on the whole mankind observes that condition well. We are almost entirely ignorant of ourselves; absolutely of others. In ignorance, we find our bliss; in illusions, our happiness.

A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reform. It does not haggle over expenditures for armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain.

It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.