Hope is the confusion of the desire for a thing with its probability.

Whoever wants his judgment to be believed, should express it coolly and dispassionately; for all vehemence springs from the will. And so the judgment might be attributed to the will and not to knowledge, which by its nature is cold.

Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts.

There is in the world only the choice between loneliness and vulgarity. All young people should be taught now to put up with loneliness ... because the less man is compelled to come into contact with others, the better off he is.

It is the courage to make a clean breast of it in the face of every question that makes the philosopher.

Animals hear about death for the first time when they die.

For, after all, the foundation of our whole nature, and, therefore, of our happiness, is our physique, and the most essential factor in happiness is health, and, next in importance after health, the ability to maintain ourselves in independence and freedom from care.