The conviction that the world and man is something that had better not have been, is of a kind to fill us with indulgence towards one another.

Thus also every keen pleasure is an error and an illusion, for no attained wish can give lasting satisfaction.

Want and boredom are indeed the twin poles of human life.

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

That the outer man is a picture of the inner, and the face an expression and revelation of the whole character, is a presumption likely enough in itself, and therefore a safe one to go on; borne out as it is by the fact that people are always anxious to see anyone who has made himself famous. Photography offers the most complete satisfaction of our curiosity.

If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the first sight of a letter from him.

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.