Reading is a mere makeshift for original thinking.

Every child is in a way a genius; and every genius is in a way a child.

We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.

All the cruelty and torment of which the world is full is in fact merely the necessary result of the totality of the forms under which the will to live is objectified.

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.

Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine.

Life to the great majority is only a constant struggle for mere existence, with the certainty of losing it at last.