The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority.

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with one's own.

Solitude will be welcomed or endured or avoided, according as a man's personal value is large or small.

What people commonly call fate is mostly their own stupidity.

He who lives to see two or three generations is like a man who sits some time in the conjurer's booth at a fair, and witnesses the performance twice or thrice in succession. The tricks were meant to be seen only once; and when they are no longer a novelty and cease to deceive, their effect is gone.

Human existence is an error...it is bad today and every day it gets worse, until the worst happens.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone.