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

Man is doomed either squander his youth, which is the only time he has to store provisions for the coming years and provide for his own well-being, or to spend his youth procuring pleasures in advance for that time of life when he will be too old to enjoy them.

Old age is the supreme evil, for it deprives man of all pleasures while allowing his appetites to remain, and it brings with it every possible sorrow. Yet men fear death and desire old age.

The most solid pleasure in this life is the empty pleasure of illusion.

Everything since Homer has improved, except poetry.

What do you do there, moon, in the sky? Tell me what you do, silent moon. When evening comes you rise and go contemplating wastelands; then you set.

Men do not so much hate an evil-doer, or evil itself, as they hate the man who calls evil by its real name.