However much we may feel for the misery of someone close to us, we always act with some artificiality in their presence. We hold-back from telling them everything we think, often because we do not genuinely mean what we say; or because we take a pleasure in their plight, thankful that we are not affected.

Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves.

Instinct. When the house burns one forgets even lunch. Yes, but one eats it later in the ashes.

To escape boredom, man works either beyond what his usual needs require, or else he invents play, that is, work that is designed to quiet no need other than that for working in general.

When thou goest to woman, take thy whip.

Pity is extolled as the virtue of prostitutes.

Socrates condemned art because he preferred philosophy and only after much internal struggle did Plato accept this judgment.