If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad ones; for life is short, and time and energy limited.

What now on the other hand makes people sociable is their incapacity to endure solitude and thus themselves.

Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, "Lighthouses" as the poet said "erected in the sea of time." They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind, Books are humanity in print.

Life is full of troubles and vexations, that one must either rise above it by means of corrected thoughts, or leave it.

Poverty and slavery are thus only two forms ofthe same thing, the essence of which is that a man's energies are expended for the most part not on his own behalf but on that of others.

There are two things which make it impossible to believe that this world is the successful work of an all-wise, all-good, and at the same time, all-powerful being; firstly, the misery which abounds in it everywhere; and secondly, the obvious imperfection of its highest product, man, who is a burlesque of what he should be.

Human existence is an error...it is bad today and every day it gets worse, until the worst happens.