Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.

Rascals are always sociable, more's the pity! 

and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character 

is the little pleasure he takes in others' company.

Suffering by nature or chance 

never seems so painful as 

suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.

The more unintelligent a man is, 

the less mysterious existence seems to him.

Reading is equivalent to thinking 

with someone else's head 

instead of with one's own.

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.

In action 

a great heart is the chief qualification. 

In work, 

a great head.

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, 

not by the false appearance things present 

and which mislead into error, 

not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, 

but by preconceived opinion, 

by prejudice.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; 

Genius hits a target no one else can see.

We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves 

in order to be like other people.

All truth passes through three stages. 

First, it is ridiculed. 

Second, it is violently opposed. 

Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Individuation is but an appearance in a field of space and time,

these being the conditioning forms

through which my cognitive faculties

apprehend their objects.

They exist, that is to say,

only in my mental representation.

My own true inner being 

actually exists

in every living creature

as truly and immediately

as known to my consciousness

only in myself.

After your death 

you will be 

what you were 

before your birth.

Each day is a little life: 

every waking and rising a little birth, 

every fresh morning a little youth, 

every going to rest and sleep a little death.

Compassion is the basis of morality.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision 

for the limits of the world.