For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.

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

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

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

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

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.

Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.

National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.

Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another's money. Idiots!

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

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.

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.

Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune.

The word of man is the most durable of all material.

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