It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer.

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

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority.

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

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.

Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.

Genius and madness have something in common: both live in a world that is different from that which exists for everyone else.

A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.

Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine.

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 the recognizable cliques came by, and so did those un-groupable stragglers who were known by their little circles of two or three.

Today's younger generation is no worse than my own. We were just as ignorant and repulsive as they are, but nobody listened to us.

When one can hear people moving, one does not so much mind, about one's fears.

China only did the biggest devaluation in 20 years, only for one reason. Because they could get away with it.

Whether I shall be unfortunate depends also on others; whether I shall be unhappy depends only on myself.

...righteousness [is] always more believable when combined with dreariness.

Is it a fact-or have I dreamt it-that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time?

Like a glowworm golden, in a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden its aerial blue Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view.

There is poetry in a pork chop to a hungry man.