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

Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.

Rascals are always sociable, more's the pity! and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others' company.

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.

All wanting comes from need, therefore from lack, therefore from suffering.

Every hero is a Samson. The strong man succumbs to the intrigues of the weak and the many; and if in the end he loses all patience he crushes both them and himself.

The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.