A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possesses at least two things besides: gratitude and purity.

When a man reaches his maturity in understanding and in years, the feeling comes over him that his father was wrong to beget him.

The parasites live where the great have little secret sores.

How much truth can a spirit bear, how much truth can a spirit dare? ... that became for me more and more the real measure of value.

Every virtue has its privilege: for example, that of contributing its own little bundle of wood to the funeral pyre of one condemned.

There are people who want to make men's lives more difficult for no other reason than the chance it provides them afterwards to offer their prescription for alleviating life; their Christianity, for instance.

What really raises one's indignation against suffering is not suffering intrinsically, but the senselessness of suffering