A man can be himself only so long as he is alone.
A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.
A man’s delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes.
A man’s face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man’s thoughts and aspirations.
After your death you will be what you were before your birth.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.
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.
Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another’s money. Idiots!
Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.
Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.
Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.
Compassion is the basis of morality.
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.
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.
Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.
Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.
Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.
For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.
Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune.
Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.
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.
Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head.
Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.
Honor means that a man is not exceptional; fame, that he is. Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost.
I’ve never known any trouble than an hour’s reading didn’t assuage.
If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.
If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the first sight of a letter from him.
In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.
In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one’s rights and double one’s duties.
In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.
It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain.
It is in the treatment of trifles that a person shows what they are.
It is only a man’s own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else’s meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.
It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us.
It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.
It’s the niceties that make the difference fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards.
Journalists are like dogs, when ever anything moves they begin to bark.
Just remember, once you’re over the hill you begin to pick up speed.
Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability.
Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies.
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.
Music is the melody whose text is the world.
National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.
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.
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.
Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.
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.
Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.
Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.
Rascals are always sociable, more’s the pity! and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others’ company.
Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.
Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.
Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.
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.
Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.
The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body.
The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time.
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.
The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.
The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.
The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.
The greatest achievements of the human mind are generally received with distrust.
The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness.
The longer a man’s fame is likely to last, the longer it will be in coming.
The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for.
The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.
The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.
The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.
The word of man is the most durable of all material.
There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.
There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.
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.
To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.
To find out your real opinion of someone, judge the impression you have when you first see a letter from them.
To free a person from error is to give, and not to take away.
To live alone is the fate of all great souls.
Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first.
We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.
We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.
Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.
Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes.
Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity.
Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see.
With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.
