Life is a well of joy; but for those out of whom an upset stomach speaks, which is the father of melancholy, all wells are poisoned.

Enduring habits I hate.... Yes, at the very bottom of my soul I feel grateful to all my misery and bouts of sickness and everything about me that is imperfect, because this sort of thing leaves me with a hundred backdoors through which I can escape from enduring habits.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

There is no more dangerous error than that of mistaking the consequence for the cause.

Alas, where is there still a sea in which one could drown: thus our lament resounds – across shallow swamps.

Ultimately, no one can extract from things, books included, more than he already knows.

Sometimes all you need to do to win clever people over to a principle is to present it in the form of a shocking paradox.