The faculty for remembering is not diminished in proportion to what one has learnt, just as little as the number of moulds in which you cast sand lessens its capacity for being cast in new moulds.

Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity.

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

If life — the craving for which is the very essence of our being — were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing.

To feel envy is human, to savour schadenfreude is devilish

Personal courage is really a very subordinate virtue-a virtue, indeed, in which we are surpassed by the lower animals; or else you would not hear people say, as brave as a lion.

We seldom think of what we have but always of what we lack. Therefore, rather than grateful, we are bitter.