Genuine contempt, on the other hand, is the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another.

In the blessings as well as in the ills of life, less depends upon what befalls us than upon the way in which it is met.

Consciousness makes the individual careful to maintain his own existence; and if this were not so, there would be no surety for the preservation of the species. From all this it is clear that individuality is not a form of perfection, but rather a limitation; and so to be freed from it is not loss but gain.

The actual life of a thought lasts only until it reaches the point of speech...As soon as our thinking has found words it ceases to be sincere...When it begins to exist in others it ceases to live in us, just as the child severs itself from its mother when it enters into its own existence.

To forgive and forget means to throw away dearly bought experience.

Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment - a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man's existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer.

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