Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable.

The more cultured a man, the less fortunate he is.

If you can't distinguish people from lap-dogs, you shouldn't undertake philanthropic work.

The unhappy are egoistic, spiteful, unjust, cruel, and less capable of understanding each other than fools. Unhappiness does not bring people together but draws them apart, and even where one would fancy people should be united by the similarity of their sorrow, far more injustice and cruelty is generated than in comparatively placid surroundings.

What truth? You see where truth is, and where untruth is, but I seem to have lost my sight and see nothing. You boldly settle all important questions, but tell me, dear, isn't it because you're young, because you haven't had time to suffer till you settled a single one of your questions? You boldly look forward, isn't it because you cannot foresee or expect anything terrible, because so far life has been hidden from your young eyes? You are bolder, more honest, deeper than we are, but think only, be just a little magnanimous, and have mercy on me.

It's better to live down a scandal than to ruin one's life.

Oh, dreams! In one night, lying with one's eyes shut, one may sometimes live through more than ten years of happiness.