You are free to do what you want, but you are not free to want what you want.

Life is a language in which certain truths are conveyed to us; if we could learn them in some other way, we should not live.

The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body.

Authors may be divided into falling stars, planets, and fixed stars: the first have a momentary effect; the second have a much longer duration; but the third are unchangeable, possess their own light, and work for all time.

Truth is most beautiful undraped.

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

A book can never be anything more than the impression of its author’s thoughts. The value of these thoughts lies either in the matter about which he has thought, or in the form in which he develops his matter — that is to say, what he has thought about it.