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.

...this our world, which is so real, with all its suns and milky ways is-nothing.

For the world is Hell, and men are on the one hand the tormented souls and on the other the devils in it.

Man is never happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something which he thinks will make him so.

There is one respect in which beasts show real wisdom... their quiet, placid enjoyment of the present moment.

A man of genius can hardly be sociable, for what dialogues could indeed be so intelligent and entertaining as his own monologues?

The shortness of life, so often lamented, may be the best thing about it.