“The shortness of life, so often lamented, may be the best thing about it.”

The world is my idea.

Faith is like love: it does not let itself be forced.

Life is short and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.

A high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial.

Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.

Happiness consists of the frequent repetition of pleasure.

Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.

He who writes carelessly confesses thereby at the very outset that he does not attach much importance to his own thoughts.

Ordinary people merely think how they shall spend their time; a man of talent tries to use it.

Truth is most beautiful undraped.

The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.

After your death, you will be what you were before your birth.

Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are the tormented souls.

Treat a work of art like a prince; let it speak to you first.

We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.

Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.