With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.

Whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends, finally, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our consciousness and what we compare it to - better and we envious and sad, worse and we feel grateful and happy.

He who lives to see two or three generations is like a man who sits some time in the conjurer's booth at a fair, and witnesses the performance twice or thrice in succession. The tricks were meant to be seen only once; and when they are no longer a novelty and cease to deceive, their effect is gone.

A man of business will often deceive you without the slightest scruple, but he will absolutely refuse to commit a theft.

The principle of contradiction establishes merely the agreement of concepts, but does not itself produce concepts.

Ordinary people merely think how they shall 'spend' their time; a man of talent tries to 'use' it.

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.