Life is a malady in which sleep soothes us every sixteen hours; it is a palliation; death is the remedy.

Marriage, as practised by high society, is arranged indecency.

We gild our medicines with sweets; why not clothe truth and morals in peasant garments as well?

The best philosophical attitude to adopt towards the world is a union of the sarcasm of gaiety with the indulgence of contempt.

Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason that novels are more amusing than history.

An economist is a surgeon with an excellent scalpel and a rough-edged lancet, who operates beautifully on the dead and tortures the living.

Philosophy, like medicine, has plenty of drugs, few good remedies, and hardly any specific cures.