A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

All our wanting comes from needs, thus we continiously suffer. The intellect teaches free will, free from suffering.

The law of simplicity and naïveté applies to all fine art, for it is compatible with what is most sublime.

For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.

Freedom of the press is to the machinery of the state what the safety valve is to the steam engine.

If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?

To forgive and forget means to throw away dearly bought experience.