If people insist that honor is dearer than life itself, what they really mean is that existence and well-being are as nothing compared with other people's opinions. Of course, this may be only an exaggerated way of stating the prosaic truth that reputation, that is, the opinion others have of us, is indispensable if we are to make any progress in the world.

Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another's money. Idiots!

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

In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one's rights and double one's duties.

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

With health, everything is a source of pleasure; without it, nothing else, whatever it may be, is enjoyable...Healt h is by far the most important element in human happiness.

We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.