Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.

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

We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.

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

Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability.

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.

I've never known any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

Money is human happiness in the abstract; he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money.

The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness.

Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.

Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.

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

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

Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

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

With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.

Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them.

Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.

The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.

Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.

Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune.

In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.

Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies.

Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.

Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.

Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see.

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head.