“On a cold winters day, a group of porcupines huddled together to stay warm and keep from freezing. But soon they felt one anothers quills and moved apart. When the need for warmth brought them clos...”

“When one considers how vast and how close to us is the problem of existencethis equivocal, tortured, fleeting, dream-like existence of oursso vast and so close that a man no sooner discovers it tha...”

“Genuine tranquility of the heart and perfect peace of mind, the highest blessings on earth after health, are to be found only in solitude and, as a permanent disposition, only in the deepest seclus...”

“The first forty years of life give us the text the next thirty supply the commentary on it.”

“With people of only moderate ability modesty is mere honesty but with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.”

“The weakness of their reasoning faculty also explains why women show more sympathy for the unfortunate than men ... and why on the contrary they are inferior to men as regards justice and less h...”

“Nothing forces us to knowWhat we do not want to knowExcept pain”

“Doesn't it seem that it is always by chance that these things happen, or is it because of the generosity of a shared knowledge of suffering that allows for it?”

“Wisdom is not making life any harder than it has to be.”