Eating reveals the characteristic grossness of the human race and also the in-built failure of its satisfactions. We arrive eager, we stuff ourselves and we go away depressed and disappointed and probably feeling a bit queasy into the bargain. It's an image of the déçu in human existence. A greedy start and a stupefied finish. Waiters, who are constantly observing this cycle, must be the most disillusioned of men.

Real misery cuts off all paths to itself.

What a test that is: more than devotion, admiration, passion. If you long and long for someone’s company you love them.

There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken-for-granted relationship.

Our actions are like ships which we may watch set out to sea, and not know when or with what cargo they will return to port.

Education doesn’t make you happy. Nor does freedom. We don’t become happy just because we’re free – if we are. Or because we’ve been educated – if we have. But because education may be the means by which we realize we are happy. It opens our eyes, our ears, tells us where delights are lurking, convinces us that there is only one freedom of any importance whatsoever, that of the mind, and gives us the assurance – the confidence – to walk the path our mind, our educated mind, offers.

Philosophy! Empty thinking by ignorant conceited men who think they can digest without eating!