Education perverts the mind since we are directly opposing the natural development of our mind by obtaining ideas first and observations last. This is why so few men of learning have such sound common sense as is quite common among the illiterate.

Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.

The heavy armor becomes the light dress of childhood; the pain is brief, the joy unending.

If life — the craving for which is the very essence of our being — were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to define the limit of our reasonable desires in respect of possessions.

Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.

I constantly saw the false and the bad, and finally the absurd and the senseless, standing in universal admiration and honour.