As the strata of the earth preserve in succession the living creatures of past epochs, so the shelves of libraries preserve in succession the errors of the past and their expositions, which like the former were very lively and made a great commotion in their own age but now stand petrified and stiff in a place where only the literary palaeontologist regards them.

Money is human happiness in the abstract.

A man finds himself, to his great astonishment, suddenly existing, after thousands and thousands of years of non-existence: he lives for a little while; and then, again, comes an equally long period when he must exist no more. The heart rebels against this, and feels that it cannot be true.

Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are its tormented souls.

If at any moment Time stays his hand, it is only when we are delivered over to the miseries of boredom.

I constantly saw the false and the bad, and finally the absurd and the senseless, standing in universal admiration and honour.

It is only in the microscope that our life looks so big. It is an indivisible point, drawn out and magnified by the powerful lenses of Time and Space.