I do not give alms; I am not poor enough for that.

There is nothing that has caused me to meditate more on Plato's secrecy and sphinx-like nature, than the happily preserved petit fait that under the pillow of his death-bed there was found no 'Bible,' nor anything Egyptian, Pythagorean, or Platonic - but a book of Aristophanes. How could even Plato have endured life - a Greek life which he repudiated - without an Aristophanes!

Assuming that we have trained our imagination to denounce the past, we will not suffer much from unfulfilled wishes.

He who has always spared himself much will in the end become sickly of so much consideration. Praised be what hardens!

You must await your thirst and allow it to become complete: otherwise you will never discover your spring, which can never be anyone else's!

He who does not desire much more from things than knowledge of them easily makes peace with his soul.

People are always angry at anyone who chooses very individual standards for his life; because of the extraordinary treatment which that man grants to himself, they feel degraded, like ordinary beings.