The life of every individual is really always a tragedy, but gone through in detail, it has the character of a comedy.

The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.

A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age if it only permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner; nor with his fate if the corner granted him allows of his following his vocation without having to think about other people.

Monotheistic religions alone furnish the spectacle of religious wars, religious persecutions, heretical tribunals, that breaking of idols and destruction of images of the gods, that razing of Indian temples and Egyptian colossi, which had looked on the sun 3,000 years: just because a jealous god had said, Thou shalt make no graven image.

Life is neither to be wept over nor to be laughed at but to be understood.

To desire immortality is to desire the eternal perpetuation of a great mistake

How is it possible that suffering that is neither my own nor of my concern should immediately affect me as though it were my own, and with such force that is moves me to action?