What people commonly call fate is mostly their own stupidity.

Life is a task to be done. It is a fine thing to say defunctus est; it means that the man has done his task.

Consciousness makes the individual careful to maintain his own existence; and if this were not so, there would be no surety for the preservation of the species. From all this it is clear that individuality is not a form of perfection, but rather a limitation; and so to be freed from it is not loss but gain.

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

There is something in us that is wiser than our head.

Ignorance is degrading only when found in company with great riches.

If two men who were friends in their youth meet again when they are old, after being separated for a life-time, the chief feeling they will have at the sight of each other will be one of complete disappointment at life as a whole; because their thoughts will be carried back to that earlier time when life seemed so fair as it lay spread out before them in the rosy light of dawn, promised so much — and then performed so little.