Always to see the general in the particular is the very foundation of genius.

Sexual passion is the cause of war and the end of peace, the basis of what is serious... and consequently the concentration of all desire

We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.

Gaiety alone, as it were, is the hard cash of happiness; everything else is just a promissory note.

A happy life is impos­si­ble; the best that a man can attain is a heroic life.

One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind. In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited.

Money alone is absolutely good, because it is not only a concrete satisfaction of one need in particular; it is an abstract satisfaction of all.