A man shows his character just in the way in which he deals with trifles, for then he is off his guard.

It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.

A man's knowledge may be said to be mature, in other words, when it has reached the most complete state of perfection to which he, as an individual, is capable of bringing it, when an exact correspondence is established between the whole of his abstract ideas and the things he has actually perceived for himself. His will mean that each of his abstract ideas rests, directly or indirectly, upon a basis of observation, which alone endows it with any real value; and also that he is able to place every observation he makes under the right abstract idea which belongs to it.

To feel envy is human, to savour schadenfreude is devilish

They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.

When you look back on your life, it looks as though it were a plot, but when you are into it, it's a mess: just one surprise after another. Then, later, you see it was perfect.

If anyone spends almost the whole day in reading...he gradually loses the capacity for thinking...This is the case with many learned persons; they have read themselves stupid