Death is not an evil, because it frees us from all evils, and while it takes away good things, it takes away also the desire for them. Old age is the supreme evil, because it deprives us of all pleasures, leaving us only the appetite for them, and it brings with it all sufferings. Nevertheless, we fear death, and we desire old age.

The thought that really crushes us is the thought of the futility of life of which death is the visible manifestation.

No human trait deserves less tolerance in everyday life, and gets less, than intolerance.

The old man, especially if he is in society in the privacy of his thoughts, though he may protest the opposite, never stops believing that, through some singular exception of the universal rule, he can in some unknown and inexplicable way still make an impression on women.

There's no greater sign of being a poor philosopher and wise man than wanting all of life to be wise and philosophical.

Every man remembers his childhood as a kind of mythical age, just as every nation's childhood is its mythical age.

The commonplace expression that life is nothing but a play is verified above all in this: the world speaks absolutely consistently in one way and acts absolutely consistently in another.