Many detective novels fail precisely because the criminal is not involved in the subject, other than through the necessity of committing a crime.
Many who are able to compose an epic poem are not able to write an epigram.
Many people speak too humbly, and the proud are too self-conscious.
Silence is an unbearable reply.
We are not so generous as to be ascetics.
We are so burdened with painful prejudices, and we feel so much madness, that the sane man frightens us, as if he were mad.
Life is always serious, but to live always seriously is impossible.
There are no words in the world that can express the difference between loneliness and friendship.
There is no such thing as an "uninteresting subject" in the world. Instead, there is the concept of "the indifferent man."
The arrogant excuse is still an insult.
violence to man is not violence, but rebellion, for every man is a king.
Absurdity is the sign of dignity.
It's not hard to see why legend deserved more respect than history. A legend is created by a whole village, and a book is written by a lone madman.
Never destroy a fence without knowing why it was erected.
Nothing brings more sadness to our age than fun.
You can say anything about a madman except that his actions are without reason. On the contrary, a madman sees a reason in everything.
Tastes are not discussed: because of tastes, insults are made, quarrels arise and people quarrel.
The most intimate things can only be told to complete strangers.
The common view of madness is misleading: man does not, in fact, lose his logic; he loses everything except logic.
It's one thing to love people, it's another to be a philanthropist.
They (the modern philosophers) subordinate the good to the expediency, although every good is an end, and every opportunity is no more than a means to that end.
Orthodoxy is normality, health, and health is more interesting and complex than madness.
From the eyes to the heart there is a path that does not pass through the intellect.
Rejecting vanity and false modesty (which sane people always jokingly mention), I must say with all sincerity: my contribution to the literature is that I left some pretty good ideas for the time in which I lived.
The paradox recalls a forgotten truth.
The paradox of courage is that you don't have to care too much about your life to save it.
Drink when you're happy, and never drink when you're unhappy.
The first of the most democratic doctrines is that all men are interesting.
We only really remember what we have forgotten.
Only those men who are not afraid of women are truly cowards.