Life is short and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.

It is only in the microscope that our life looks so big.

A word too much always defeats its purpose.

Our civilized world is nothing but a great masquerade. You encounter knights, parsons, soldiers, doctors, lawyers, priests, philosophers and a thousand more: but they are not what they appear - they are merely masks... Usually, as I say, there is nothing but industrialists, businessmen and speculators concealed behind all these masks.

To feel envy is human, to savour schadenfreude is devilish

We must set limits to our wishes, curb our desires, moderate our anger, always remembering that an individual can attain only an infinitesimal share in anything that is worth having; and that on the other hand, everyone must incur many of the ills of life

The shortness of life, so often lamented, may be the best thing about it.