Every state of welfare, every feeling of satisfaction, is negative in its character; that is to say, it consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of existence.

To expect a man to retain everything that he has ever read is like expecting him to carry about in his body everything that he has ever eaten.

The inexpressible depth of music, so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain… Music expresses only the quintessence of life and its events, never these themselves.

It is only a man's own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them.

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

Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.

Man shows his character best in trifles.