Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to chance.

Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.

Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption, but also a disruption of thought.

The beard, being a half-mask, should be forbidden by the police - It is, moreover, as a sexual symbol in the middle of the face, obscene: that is why it pleases women.

Every generation, no matter how paltry its character, thinks itself much wiser than the one immediately preceding it, let alone those that are more remote.

I believe that when death closes our eyes we shall awaken to a light, of which our sunlight is but the shadow.

There is only one inborn error. and that is the notion that we exist in order to be happy.