The vanity of existence is revealed in the whole form existence assumes: in the infiniteness of time and space contrasted with the finiteness of the individual in both; in the fleeting present as the sole form in which actuality exists; in the contingency and relativity of all things; in continual becoming without being; in continual desire without satisfaction; in the continual frustration of striving of which life consists. . . Time is that by virtue of which everything becomes nothingness in our hands and loses all real value.
Life is neither to be wept over nor to be laughed at but to be understood.
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.
Most men are so thoroughly subjective that nothing really interests them but themselves.
He who can see truly in the midst of general infatuation is like a man whose watch keeps good time, when all clocks in the town in which he lives are wrong. He alone knows the right time; what use is that to him?
You must treat a work of art like a great man: stand before it and wait patiently till it deigns to speak.
Apart from man, no being wonders at its own experience.
No one writes anything worth writing, unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject.
Want and boredom are indeed the twin poles of human life.
It is only in the microscope that our life looks so big. It is an indivisible point, drawn out and magnified by the powerful lenses of Time and Space.
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.
To free a person from error is to give, and not to take away.
That which knows all things and is known by none is the subject.
A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.
What a man is: that is to say, personality, in the widest sense of the word; under which are included health, strength, beauty, temperament, moral character, intelligence, and education.
At bottom, every state regards another as a gang of robbers who will fall upon it as soon as there is an opportunity.
A man finds himself, to his great astonishment, suddenly existing, after thousands and thousands of years of non-existence: he lives for a little while; and then, again, comes an equally long period when he must exist no more. The heart rebels against this, and feels that it cannot be true.
Reason deserves to be called a prophet; for in showing us the consequence and effect of our actions in the present, does it not tell us what the future will be?
Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another's money. Idiots!
If life — the craving for which is the very essence of our being — were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing.
If, while hurrying ostensibly to the temple of truth, we hand the reins over to our personal interests which look aside at very different guiding stars, for instance at the tastes and foibles of our contemporaries, at the established religion, but in particular at the hints and suggestions of those at the head of affairs, then how shall we ever reach the high, precipitous, bare rock whereon stands the temple of truth?
It is only in the microscope that our life looks so big.
Style is the physiognomy of the mind. It is more infallible than that of the body. To imitate the style of another is said to be wearing a mask. However beautiful it may be, it is through its lifelessness insipid and intolerable, so that even the most ugly living face is more engaging.
The eternal being..., as it lives in us, also lives in every animal.
We deceive and flatter no one by such delicate artificies as we do our own selves.
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