The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.
Just remember, once you’re over the hill you begin to pick up speed.
The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.
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 opinion, however absurd, which men will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally adopted.
Life is full of troubles and vexations, that one must either rise above it by means of corrected thoughts, or leave it.
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.
Genius and madness have something in common: both live in a world that is different from that which exists for everyone else.
It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.
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.
To live alone is the fate of all great souls.
Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.
The life of every individual is really always a tragedy, but gone through in detail, it has the character of a comedy.
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.
Pleasure is never as pleasant as we expected it to be and pain is always more painful. The pain in the world always outweighs the pleasure. If you don’t believe it, compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is eating the other.
Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies.
The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.
What people commonly call fate is mostly their own stupidity.
The world is not a factory and animals are not products for our use.
If we suspect that a man is lying, we should pretend to believe him; for then he becomes bold and assured, lies more vigorously, and is unmasked.