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

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

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.

Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed.

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.

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.

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

A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.

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

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.

Compassion is the basis of morality.

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

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

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

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.

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

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

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

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

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

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.

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.

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.

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

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.

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

The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.

Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.

The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.

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

Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune.

Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.

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

Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.

Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity.

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

Music is the melody whose text is the world.

Journalists are like dogs, when ever anything moves they begin to bark.

The greatest achievements of the human mind are generally received with distrust.

In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one's rights and double one's duties.

It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain.

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with one's own.

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.

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.

The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.

It is in the treatment of trifles that a person shows what they are.

It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us.

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.

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.

The longer a man's fame is likely to last, the longer it will be in coming.

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