Life to the great majority is only a constant struggle for mere existence, with the certainty of losing it at last.

Our moral virtues benefit mainly other people; intellectual virtues, on the other hand, benefit primarily ourselves; therefore the former make us universally popular, the latter unpopular.

The young should early be trained to bear being left alone; for it is a source of happiness and peace of mind.

Boredom is an evil that is not to be estimated lightly. It can come in the end to real despair. The public authority takes precautions against it everywhere, as against other universal calamities.

There is only one healing force, and that is nature; in pills and ointments there is none. At most they can give the healing force of nature a hint about where there is something for it to do.

A man of talent will strive for money and reputation; but the spring that moves genius to the production of its works is not as easy to name

...nothing at all rides on the life or death of the individual.