Life is a constant process of dying.

The problem with Germans is that they look in the clouds for what lies at their feet.

How very paltry and limited the normal human intellect is, and how little lucidity there is in the human consciousness, may be judged from the fact that, despite the ephemeral brevity of human life, the uncertainty of our existence and the countless enigmas which press upon us from all sides, everyone does not continually and ceaselessly philosophize, but that only the rarest of exceptions do.

The conviction that the world and man is something that had better not have been, is of a kind to fill us with indulgence towards one another.

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.

A sense of humour is the only divine quality of man

A writer should never be brief at the expense of being clear.