Consciousness is the mere surface of our minds, of which, as of the earth, we do not know the inside, but only the crust.

I owe what is best in my own development to the impression made by Kant's works, the sacred writings of the Hindus, and Plato.

There is a wide difference between the original thinker and the merely learned man.

Every time a man is begotten and born, the clock of human life is wound up anew to repeat once more its same old tune that has already been played innumerable times, movement by movement and measure by measure, with insignificant variations.

To feel envy is human, to savour schadenfreude is devilish

Genius and madness have something in common: both live in a world that is different from that which exists for everyone else.

The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.