Since boredom advances and boredom is the root of all evil, no wonder, then, that the world goes backwards, that evil spreads. This can be traced back to the very beginning of the world. The gods were bored; therefore they created human beings.

Be that self which one truly is.

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.

Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving birth - look at the dying man's struggle at his last extremity, and then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus could be intended for enjoyment.

During the first period of a man's life the greatest danger is not to take the risk.

Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor.

There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.

It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.

It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks, that we concentrate only on what is most significant and important.

Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.

Since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic if it is pulled out I shall die.

Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.

I begin with the principle that all men are bores. Surely no one will prove himself so great a bore as to contradict me in this.

Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all.

Old age realizes the dreams of youth: look at Dean Swift; in his youth he built an asylum for the insane, in his old age he was himself an inmate.

Personality is only ripe when a man has made the truth his own.

Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer.

Purity of heart is to will one thing.

I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved.

One can advise comfortably from a safe port.