Genius unrefined resembles a flash of lightning, but wisdom is like the sun.

No spoon has yet destroyed a mouth, but the knife of war cuts portions that are hard to swallow. Perhaps the big mouths of the privileged are able to cope with them, but they dull the teeth of the little people and ruin their stomachs.

The thing that pleases is not always good and, helas, the good thing does not always please.

Christianity is the religion of melancholy and hypochondria. Islam, on the other hand, promotes apathy, and Judaism instills its adherents with a certain choleric vehemence, the heathen Greeks may well be called happy optimists.

Why do villains have so much influence? Because the honest people are terribly dense.

Disregard for the consequences and for right and wrong nowadays passes as energy.

What a pathetic creature is man! His senses are awakened by the hope for the very thing whose consummation puts him to sleep.