Good manners disappear in proportion as the influence of a Court and an exclusive aristocracy lessens; this decrease can be plainly observed from decade to decade by those who have an eye for public behavior, which grows visibly.

In pain there is as much wisdom as in pleasure: like the latter it is one of the best self preservatives of a species.

God is a too palpably clumsy answer; an answer which shows a lack of delicacy towards us thinkers-fundamentally, even a crude prohibition to us: you shall not think!

If you wish to understand a philosopher, do not ask what he says, but find out what he wants

It is only those who know how to feel that "this is not good" who devise improvements.

The most fatal seductive lie that has yet existed

The final reward of the dead - to die no more