National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

Every generation, no matter how paltry its character, thinks itself much wiser than the one immediately preceding it, let alone those that are more remote.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

It is only a man's own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else's meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

To feel envy is human, to savour schadenfreude is devilish

A man who has not enough originality to think out a new title for his book will be much less capable of giving it new contents.