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

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less...

I cannot here withhold the statement that optimism, where it is not merely the thoughtless talk of those who harbor nothing but words under their shallow foreheads, seems to me to be not merely an...

To feel envy is human, to savour schadenfreude is devilish.

The intellectual attainments of a man who thinks for himself resemble a fine painting, where the light and shade are correct, the tone sustained, the colour perfectly harmonised; it is true to life. On the...

One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind.In order to read what is good one must make it a condition...

When we see that almost everything men devote their lives to attain, sparing no effort and encountering a thousand toils and dangers in the process, has, in the end, no further object than to raise...

I have not yet spoken my last word about women. I believe that if a woman succeeds in withdrawing from the mass, or rather raising herself from above the mass, she grows ceaselessly and more...

Qualsiasi uomo notevole, chiunque cioè non appartenga a quei 5/6 dell’umanità dotati tanto miseramente dalla natura, rimarrà dopo i quarant’anni difficilmente esente da una certa traccia di misantropia.

Marrying means to halve one’s rights and double one’s duties

Life is short and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.

Assim, logo que nosso pensamento encontrou palavras, ele já deixa de ser algo íntimo, algo sério no nível mais profundo. Quando ele começa a existir para os outros, para de viver em nós, da mesma...

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

It is easy to understand that in the dreary middle ages the Aristotelian logic would be very acceptable to the controversial spirit of the schoolmen, which, in the absence of all real knowledge, spent its...

Bei Abwesenheit großer Leiden quälen uns die kleinsten Unannehmlichkeiten.

If human nature were not base, but thoroughly honourable, we should in every debate have no other aim than the discovery of truth; we should not in the least care whether the truth proved to...

A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age if it only permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner; nor with his fate if the corner granted...

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them; but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.

Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death. The higher the interest rate and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption...

What give all that is tragic, whatever its form, the characteristic of the sublime, is the first inkling of the knowledge that the world and life can give no satisfaction, and are not worth our...

Ordinary people merely think how they shall ‘spend’ their time; a man of talent tries to ‘use’ it.

One simple test of the claim that the pleasure in the world outweighs the pain…is to compare the feelings of an animal that is devouring another with those of the animal being devoured.

optimism, where it is not just the thoughtless talk of someone with only words in his flat head, strikes me as not only absurd, but even a truly wicked way of thinking, a bitter mockery...

A pena está para o pensamento como a bengala está para o andar. Da mesma maneira que se caminha com mais leveza sem bengala, o pensamento mais pleno se dá sem a pena. Apenas quando...

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

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

How is it possible that suffering that is neither my own nor of my concern should immediately affect me as though it were my own, and with such force that is moves me to action?

Death before dishonour,” and so on.

NOT to my contemporaries, not to my compatriots but to mankind I commit my now completed work in the confidence that it will not be without value for them, even if this should be late...

Reading is thinking with someone else’s head instead of ones own.

Consider the Koran, for example; this wretched book was sufficient to start a world-religion, to satisfy the metaphysical need for countless millions for twelve hundred years, to become the basis of their morality and of...

Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all...

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people. There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness.

Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.

there are very few who can think, but every man wants to have an opinion; and what remains but to take it ready-made from others, instead of forming opinions for himself?

Uma hipótese leva, na cabeça em que se estabeleceu ou mesmo na cabeça em que nasceu, uma vida comparável à de um organismo, já que assimila do mundo exterior apenas o que lhe é proveitoso...

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

Let us see rather that like Janus—or better, like Yama, the Brahmin god of death—religion has two faces, one very friendly, one very gloomy…

Compassion is the basis of morality.

Every fulfilled wish we wrest from the world is really like alms that keep the beggar alive today so that he can starve again tomorrow.

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

1.Lesen ist ein bloßes Surrogat des eigenen Denkens. Man läßt dabei seine Gedanken von dem Andern am Gängelbande führen. […] Lesen soll man nur dann, wann auch die Quelle der eigenen Gedanken stockt; was auch...

However, the struggle with that sentinel is, as a rule, not so hard as it may seem from a long way off, mainly in consequence of the antagonism between the ills of the body and...

O espírito íntimo e o sentido da vida verdadeira e pura do claustro e do ascetismo em geral, é sentirmo-nos dignos e capazes de uma existência melhor do que a nossa, e querermos fortificar e...

All happiness is of a negative rather than positive nature, and for this reason cannot give lasting satisfaction and gratification, but rather only ever a release from a pain or lack, which must be followed...

Truth that is naked is the most beautiful.

Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.

Assim como todo excesso numa atividade costuma levar ao contrário do que se pretendia, as palavras servem de fato para tornar os pensamentos compreensíveis, mas só até certo ponto. Quando esse ponto é ultrapassado, elas...

No one writes anything worth writing, unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject.

Everywhere where detestable Islam has not yet driven out the ancient, profound religions of humanity with fire and sword, my ascetic results would have to fear the reproach of being trivial