The animal lacks both anxiety and hope because its consciousness is restricted to what is clearly evident and thus to the present moment: the animal is the present incarnate.

Were an Asiatic to ask me for a definition of Europe, I should be forced to answer him: It is that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible delusion that man was created out of nothing, and that his present birth is his first entrance into life.

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

Human existence is an error...it is bad today and every day it gets worse, until the worst happens.

It is most important to allow the brain the full measure of sleep which is required to restore it; for sleep is to a man's whole nature what winding up is to a clock.

Compassion is the basis of morality.

Every satisfaction he attains lays the seeds of some new desire, so that there is no end to the wishes of each individual will.