Chaos is perhaps at the bottom of everything.

To be boosted by an illusion is not to live better than to live in harmony with the truth ... these refusals to part with a decayed illusion are really an infection to the mind.

Music is a means of giving form to our inner feelings, without attaching them to events or objects in the world.

I like to walk about among the beautiful things that adorn the world; but private wealth I should decline, or any sort of personal possessions, because they would take away my liberty.

The family is an early expedient and in many ways irrational. If the race had developed a special sexless class to be nurses, pedagogues, and slaves, like the workers among ants and bees, then the family would have been unnecessary. Such a division of labor would doubtless have involved evils of its own, but it would have obviated some drags and vexations proper to the family.

Historical investigation has for its aim to fix the order and character of events throughout past time and in all places. The task is frankly superhuman.

My soul hates the fool whose only passion is to live by rule.