“One should use common words to say uncommon things.”

No rose without a thorn but many a thorn without a rose.

Fate shuffles the cards and we play.

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people. There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness.

Compassion is the basis of morality.

To be alone is the fate of all great minds – a fate deplored at times, but still always chosen as the less grievous of two evils.

Each day is a little life.

Life is full of troubles and vexations, that one must either rise above it by means of corrected thoughts or leave it.

Genius lives only one story above the madness.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.

Marrying means to halve one’s rights and double one’s duties.

If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.

Life is a constant process of dying.

I have not yet spoken my last word about women. I believe that if a woman succeeds in withdrawing from the mass, or rather raising herself from above the mass, she grows ceaselessly and more than a man.

But wise is the man who disdains no character, but with searching glance explores him to the root and cause of all.

I believe that the foundation of democratic liberty is a willingness to believe that other people may perhaps be wiser than oneself.

If one is to love oneself one must behave in ways that one can admire.

It is quite clear that the German and Chinese revolutions in case of victory would have changed the face of Europe and Asia, and perhaps of the whole world.

Perhaps Kafka laughed when he told stories [. . . ] because one isn’t always equal to oneself.

If one finger brings oil it soils the others.

For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.

If someone wishes for good health, one must first ask oneself if he is ready to do away with the reasons for his illness. Only then is it possible to help him.