The secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for.
I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared.
To go wrong in one's own way is better then to go right in someone else's.
People really do like seeing their best friends humiliated; a large part of the friendship is based on humiliation; and that is an old truth,well known to all intelligent people.
Only through suffering can we find ourselves.
Intelligence alone is not nearly enough when it comes to acting wisely.
There is immeasurably more left inside than what comes out in words.
Nothing is more seductive for a man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering.
Nature doesn't ask your permission; it doesn't care about your wishes, or whether you like its laws or not. You're obliged to accept it as it is, and consequently all its results as well.
Besides, nowadays, almost all capable people are terribly afraid of being ridiculous, and are miserable because of it.
Let us not forget that the reasons for human actions are usually incalculably more complex and diverse than we tend to explain them later, and are seldom clearly manifest.
The more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.
My soul bleeds and the blood steadily, silently, disturbingly slowly, swallows me whole.
Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him.
But men love abstract reasoning and neat systematization so much that they think nothing of distorting the truth, closing their eyes and ears to contrary evidence to preserve their logical constructions.
Wealth is the number of things one can do without.
To be in love is not the same as loving. You can be in love with a woman and still hate her.
If God does not exist, then everything is permissible.
What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.
What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead.
Since man cannot live without miracles, he will provide himself with miracles of his own making. He will believe in witchcraft and sorcery, even though he may otherwise be a heretic, an atheist, and a rebel.
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
The more incompetent one feels, the more eager he is to fight.
To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise.
My friend, the truth is always implausible, did you know that? To make the truth more plausible, it's absolutely necessary to mix a bit of falsehood with it. People have always done so.
I believe the best definition of man is the ungrateful biped.
Believe to the end, even if all men went astray and you were left the only one faithful; bring your offering even then and praise God in your loneliness.
Reality is infinitely diverse, compared with even the subtlest conclusions of abstract thought, and does not allow of clear-cut and sweeping distinctions. Reality resists classification.
I am strongly convinced that not only too much consciousness but even any consciousness at all is a sickness.
There is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and useful for life in later years than some good memory, especially a memory connected with childhood, with home.
