“Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.”

“Among ourselves (Westerners), the people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forgo ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.”

“To speak seriously: the standards of "goodness" which are generally recognized by public opinion are not those which are calculated to make the world a happier place. This is due to a variety of causes, of which the chief is tradition, and the next most powerful is the unjust power of dominant classes.”

“With the wise man, what he has does not cease to be enjoyable because some one else has something else. Envy, in fact, is one form of vice, partly moral, partly intellectual, which consists in seeing things never in themselves but only in their relations”

“There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.”

“The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.”

“It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.”