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.

People are ridiculous only when they try or seem to be that which they are not.

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

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

Death is not evil, for it frees man from all ills and takes away his desires along with desire's rewards.

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.