The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption, but also a disruption of thought.

You are free to do what you want, but you are not free to want what you want.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

To attain something desired is to discover how vain it is; and…though we live all our lives in expectation of better things, we often at the same time long regretfully for what is past. The present, on the other hand, is regarded as something quite temporary and serving only as the road to our goal. That is why most men discover when they look back on their life that they have the whole time been living ad interim, and are surprised to see that which they let go by so unregarded and unenjoyed was precisely their life, was precisely in expectation of which they lived.

Nothing in life gives a man so much courage as the attainment or renewal of the conviction that other people regard him with favor; because it means that everyone joins to give him help and protection, which is an infinitely stronger bulwark against the ills of life than anything he can do himself.

The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority.