It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.
Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.
Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability.
Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.
With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone.
Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see.
Music is the melody whose text is the world.
Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.
Talent hits a target no one else can hit Genius hits a target no one else can see.
Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.
Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another's money. Idiots!
Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.
The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.
Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another but women are by nature enemies.
Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.
After your death you will be what you were before your birth.
The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.
The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.
Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.
Hatred is an affair of the heart contempt that of the head.
To live alone is the fate of all great souls.
Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.