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

The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee...

Intellect is invisible to the man who has none.

Compassion is the basis of all morality

Lesen heißt mit einem fremden Kopfe, statt des eigenen, denken.

All geniuses are peculiarly inclined to solitude, to which they are driven as much by their difference from others as the inner wealth with which they are quipped, since among humans, among diamonds, only the...

I’ve never known any trouble than an hour’s reading didn’t assuage.

Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

A man can do as he will, but not will as he will.

A autentica concisão da expressão consiste em dizer apenas, em todos os casos, o que é digno de ser dito, com a justa distinção entre o que é necessário e o que é supérfluo, evitando...

Truth is most beautiful undraped.

To become reconciled to a friend with whom you have broken, is a form of weakness; and you pay the penalty of it when he takes the first opportunity of doing precisely the very thing...

I believe that when death closes our eyes we shall awaken to a light, of which our sunlight is but the shadow.

It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your...

The best consolation in misfortune or affliction of any kind will be the thought of other people who are in a still worse plight than yourself; and this is a form of consolation open to...

Everything is beautiful only so long as it does not concern us.

Education stuffs you full of ideas without the coinciding experience that gave rise to those ideas in the first place, giving you incorrect perspective and notions.

That the Negroes were enslaved more than other races, and on a large scale, is evidently a result of their being, in contrast to other races, inferior in intelligence – which, however, does not justify...

They tell us that Suicide is the greatest piece of Cowardice… That Suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in this world to which every man has a more unassailable...

Any foolish boy can stamp on a beetle, but all the professors in the world cannot make a beetle.

If at any moment Time stays his hand, it is only when we are delivered over to the miseries of boredom.

(…) deve-se evitar toda prolixidade e todo entrelaçamento de observações que não valem o esforço da leitura. (…) É sempre melhor deixar de lado algo bom do que incluir algo insignificante. (…) Sobretudo, não dizer...

There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the subject’s sake, and those who write for writing’s sake. […] The truth is that when an author begins to write for...

Treat a work of art like a prince: let it speak to you first.

The Jews are the scum of the earth, but they are also great masters in lying.