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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.

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

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune.

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

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.

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

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

It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

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

The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time.

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

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

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.