Without the hope of posterity, for our race if not for ourselves, without the assurance that we being dead yet live, all pleasures of the mind and senses sometimes seem to me no more than pathetic and crumbling defences shored up against our ruin.

we can forgive anything as long as it isn't done to us.

Metaphysical speculation is about as pointless as a discussion on the meaning of one's lungs. They're for breathing.

I still occasionally need to struggle but I now fear it less. The weapons I fight it with are also my consolations: books, music, food, wine, nature.

We are often more merciful to our animals than we are to each other.

You never forget the people who were kind to you in childhood, do you, sir?

Of all the things that human beings did together, the sexual act was the one with the most various of reasons.