“What matters creative endless toil, When, at a snatch, oblivion ends the coil?”

“Love grants in a moment what toil can hardly achieve in an age.”

“Oblivion is full of people who allow the opinions of others to overrule their belief in themselves.”

“All our most honest toil succeeds only in unconscious moments. For how would the rose blossom if it were aware of the splendor of the sun!”

“The world runs on from one folly to another; and the man who, solely from regard to the opinion of others, and without any wish or necessity of his own, toils after gold, honour, or any other phantom, is no better than a fool.”

“The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honour or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.”

“When I consider the narrow limits within which our active and inquiring faculties are confined; when I see how all our energies are wasted in providing for mere necessities, which again have no further end than to prolong a wretched existence; and then that all our satisfaction concerning certain subjects of investigation ends in nothing better than a passive resignation... when I consider all this... I am silent.”