There are some centuries which - apart from everything else - in the art and other disciplines presume to remake everything because they know how to make nothing.

Man is almost always as wicked as his needs require.

Nature, with her customary beneficence, has ordained that man shall not learn how to live until the reasons for living are stolen from him, that he shall find no enjoyment until he has become incapable of vivid pleasure.

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.

Men seldom act from a correct sense of what may be harmful or useful to them.

There are some centuries which - apart from everything else - in the art and other disciplines presume to remake everything because they know how to make nothing.

He who has the courage to laugh is almost as much a master of the world as he who is ready to die.