A man never is happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something which he thinks will make him so; he seldom attains his goal, and when he does, it is only to be disappointed; he is mostly shipwrecked in the end, and comes into harbor with mast and rigging gone. And then, it is all one whether he has been happy or miserable; for his life was never anything more than a present moment always vanishing; and now it is over.

He who writes carelessly confesses thereby at the very outset that he does not attach much importance to his own thoughts.

There is only one healing force, and that is nature; in pills and ointments there is none. At most they can give the healing force of nature a hint about where there is something for it to do.

When you look back on your life, it looks as though it were a plot, but when you are into it, it's a mess: just one surprise after another. Then, later, you see it was perfect.

The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.

This actual world of what is knowable, in which we are and which is in us, remains both the material and the limit of our consideration.

Human life, like all inferior goods, is covered on the outside with a false glitter; what suffers always conceals itself.