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.

The greater part of the people we assign to educate our sons we know for certain are not educated. Yet we do not doubt that they can give what they have not received, a thing which cannot be otherwise acquired.

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.

It's interesting to observe that almost all truly worthy men have simple manners, and that simple manners are almost always taken as a sign of little worth

It's not our disadvantages or shortcomings that are ridiculous, but rather the studious way we try to hide them, and our desire to act as if they did not exist.

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.