The greatest intellectual capacities are only found in connection with a vehement and passionate will.

Ordinary people merely think how they shall 'spend' their time; a man of talent tries to 'use' it.

All religions promise a reward beyond life, in eternity, for excellences of the will or heart, but none for excellences of the head or understanding.

A high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial.

That human life must be some kind of mistake is sufficiently proved by the simple observation that man is a compound of needs which are hard to satisfy; that their satisfaction achieves nothing but a painless condition in which he is only given over to boredom . . .

Every time a man is begotten and born, the clock of human life is wound up anew to repeat once more its same old tune that has already been played innumerable times, movement by movement and measure by measure, with insignificant variations.

For whence did Dante take the materials for his hell but from this our actual world? And yet he made a very proper hell of it.