“The soul languishing in obscurity contracts a kind of rust, or abandons itself to the chimera of presumption; for it is natural for it to acquire something, even when separated from any one.”

While we ponder when to begin, it becomes too late to do.

From writing rapidly it does not result that one writes well, but from writing well it results that one writes rapidly.

Satiety is a neighbor to continued pleasures.

We should not speak so that it is possible for the audience to understand us, but so that it is impossible for them to misunderstand us.

A man who tries to surpass another may perhaps succeed in equaling in not actually surpassing him, but one who merely follows can never quite come up with him: a follower, necessarily, is always behind.

The prosperous can not easily form a right idea of misery.

There is no one who would not rather appear to know than to be taught.

Those who wish to appear learned to fools, appear as fools to the learned.

A religion without mystics is a philosophy.

Nothing can be pleasing which is not also becoming.

(Slaughter) means blood and iron.

For comic writers charge Socrates with making the worse appear the better reason.

A liar must have a good memory.

The gifts of nature are infinite in their variety, and mind differs from mind almost as much as body from body.

A mediocre speech supported by all the power of delivery will be more impressive than the best speech unaccompanied by such power.

Lately we have had many losses.

Self-consciousness is not knowledge but a story one tells about oneself.

What one has, one ought to use; and whatever he does, he should do with all his might.

There is no such thing as an empty word, only one that is worn out yet remains full.

When one has a grateful heart, life is so beautiful.

One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.

The meeting of the solitary ones can happen only in solitude.

One who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him.

If one is attacked as a Jew, one must defend oneself as a Jew. Not as a German, not as a world-citizen, not as an upholder of the Rights of Man.