“In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one's rights and double one's duties. ”

“Marrying means to halve one's rights and double one's duties”

“Marrying means, to grasp blindfolded into a sack hoping to find out an eel out of an assembly of snakes.”

“For the world is Hell, and men are on the one hand the tormented souls and on the other the devils in it.”

“Just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read. If one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost.”

“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.”

“There is some wisdom in taking a gloomy view, in looking upon the world as a kind of Hell, and in confining one's efforts to securing a little room that shall not be exposed to the fire.”