Memory works like the collection glass in the Camera obscura: it gathers everything together and therewith produces a far more beautiful picture than was present originally.

Every state of welfare, every feeling of satisfaction, is negative in its character; that is to say, it consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of existence.

Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head.

The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.

Knowledge is to certain extent a second existence.

The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body.

To overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence.