To buy books would be a good thing if we could also buy the time to read them; but the purchase of books is often mistaken for the assimilation and mastering of their contents.

Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.

There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life.

Memory works like the collection glass in the Camera obscura: it gathers everything together and therewith produces a far more beautiful picture than was present originally.

If there is anything in the world that can really be called a man's property, it is surely that which is the result of his mental activity.

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.

What makes people hard-hearted is this, that each man has, or fancies he has, as much as he can bear in his own troubles.