The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.

There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the subject's sake, and those who write for writing's sake. ... The truth is that when an author begins to write for the sake of covering paper, he is cheating the reader; because he writes under the pretext that he has something to say.

Just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read. If one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost.

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

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.

If God made this world, then i would not want to be the God. It is full of misery and distress that it breaks my heart.

There is not a grain of dust, not an atom that can become nothing, yet man believes that death is the annhilation of his being.