In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.

If the world were a paradise of luxury and ease, a land flowing with milk and honey, where every Jack obtained his Jill at once and without any difficulty, men would either die of boredom or hang themselves; or there would be wars, massacres, and murders; so that in the end mankind would inflict more suffering on itself than it has now to accept at the hands of Nature.

Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.

To gain anything we have longed for is only to discover how vain and empty it is; and even though we are always living in expectation of better things, at the same time we often repent and long to have the past back again.

I've never known any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage.

The general history of art and literature shows that the highest achievements of the human mind are, as a rule, not favourably received at first.

The principle of contradiction establishes merely the agreement of concepts, but does not itself produce concepts.