Misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice. At any rate, the last two are certainly much less frequent.

We can offer up much in the large, but to make sacrifices in little things is what we are seldom equal to.

Great necessity elevates man, petty necessity casts him down

The realization of the self is only possible if one is productive, if one can give birth to one's own potentialities.

The person of analytic or critical intellect finds something ridiculous in everything. The person of synthetic or constructive intellect, in almost nothing.

Man... knows only when he is satisfied and when he suffers, and only his sufferings and his satisfactions instruct him concerning himself, teach him what to seek and what to avoid. For the rest, man is a confused creature; he knows not whence he comes or whither he goes, he knows little of the world, and above all, he knows little of himself.

The highest happiness, the purest joys of life, wear out at last.