The most accomplished monkey cannot draw a monkey, this only man can do; just as it is also only man who regards his ability to do this as a distinct merit

A clever child brought up with a foolish one can itself become foolish. Man is so perfectible and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.

You can make a good living from soothsaying, but not from truthsaying

Much can be inferred about a man from his mistress: in her one beholds his weaknesses and his dreams.

The fly that doesn’t want to be swatted is most secure when it lights on the fly-swatter.

Man is a gregarious animal and much more so in his mind than in his body. A golden rule; judge men not by their opinions but by what their opinions have made of them.

The grave is still the best shelter against the storms of destiny

Those who never have time do least

Men still have to be governed by deception.

What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our mouths

The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.

It often takes more courage to change one’s opinion than to stick to it.

It not seldom happens that in the purposeless rovings and wanderings of the imagination we hunt down such game as can be put to use by our purposeful philosophy in its well-ordered household

To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation

Man loves company even if only that of a small burning candle

The drive to propagate our race has also propagated a lot of other things

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

God created man in His own image, says the Bible; philosophers reverse the process: they create God in theirs.

The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.

A vacuum of ideas affects people differently than a vacuum of air, otherwise readers of books would be constantly collapsing.

A book is a mirror: If an ass peers into it, you can’t expect an apostle to look out

Many a man who is willing to be shot for his belief in a miracle would have doubted, had he been present at the miracle itself

As nations improve, so do their gods

To read means to borrow; to create out of one’s readings is paying off one’s debts

Some men come by the name of genius in the same way as an insect comes by the name of centipede – not because it has a hundred feet, but because most people can’t count...

A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.

I cannot stop thinking that I died before I was born and that at my death I will return to the same state

Some people read because they are too lazy to think.

He was then in his fifty-fourth year, when even in the case of poets reason and passion begin to discuss a peace treaty and usually conclude it not very long afterwards.

The worst thing you can possibly do is worrying and thinking about what you could have done.

He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage – he won’t encounter many rivals.

Man loves company even if it is only that of a small burning candle

Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum.

Most men of education are more superstitious than they admit – nay, than they think

An hour-glass is a reminder not only of time’s quick flight, but also of the dust to which we must at last return

If an angel were to tell us something of his philosophy, I do believe some of his propositions would sound like 2 x 2 = 13

We say that someone occupies an official position, whereas it is the official position that occupies him

Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.

If moderation is a fault then indifference is a crime

The most dangerous untruths are truths moderately distorted.

One’s first step in wisdom is to question everything – and one’s last is to come to terms with everything

First there is a time when we believe everything, then for a little while we believe with discrimination, then we believe nothing whatever, and then we believe everything again – and, moreover, give reasons why...