There are two things which make it impossible to believe that this world is the successful work of an all-wise, all-good, and at the same time, all-powerful being; firstly, the misery which abounds in it everywhere; and secondly, the obvious imperfection of its highest product, man, who is a burlesque of what he should be.

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.

Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to chance.

It is only the hope of what is claimed that begets and nurishes the wish.

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.

Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.

Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.