“The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.”

“The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.”

“Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed. ”

“Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people. There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness.”

“Solitude will be welcomed or endured or avoided, according as a man's personal value is large or small.”

“If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.”

“What light is to the outer physical world intellect is to the inner world of consciousness. For intellect is related to the will, and thus also to the organism which is nothing other than will regarded objectively, in the approximate same way as light is to a combustible body and the oxygen in combination with which it ignites.”