The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.

No one writes anything worth writing, unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject.

In order to increase his pleasures, man has intentionally added to the number and pressure of his needs, which in their original state were not much more difficult to satisfy than those of the brute. Hence luxury in all its forms; delicate food, the use of tobacco and opium, spirituous liquors, fine clothes, and the thousand and one things that he considers necessary to his existence.

Intellect is invisible to the man who has none.

There is in the world only the choice between loneliness and vulgarity. All young people should be taught now to put up with loneliness ... because the less man is compelled to come into contact with others, the better off he is.

Reasonable and vicious are quite consistent with each other, in fact, only through their union are great and far-reaching crimes possible

Human life, like all inferior goods, is covered on the outside with a false glitter; what suffers always conceals itself.