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

“What disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly deluded hope and so also dissatisfaction. Dec...”

“If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare i...”

“We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.”

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”

“We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.”

“From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back.”

“This city belongs to ghosts, to murderers, to sleepwalkers. Where are you, in what bed, in what dream?”

“See the moon? It hates us.”

“I have little use for religion as it is practiced, or for astrology, or for belief in witchcraft or omens of good or ill-luck. I think they all stem from some insufficiency in mens minds, perhaps f...”

“It is only the innocent mind which knows what love is, and the innocent mind can live in the world which is not innocent.”

“So if you can look at all things without allowing pleasure to creep in - at a face, a bird, the colour of a sari, the beauty of a sheet of water shimmering in the sun, or anything that gives deligh...”

“There is a light within our soul that burns brighter than the sun. And we ignore it.”

“It's not much. You begin by thinking there is something extraordinary about it. But you'll find out, when you've been out in the world a while longer, unhappiness is the commonest thing there is.”

“A man can gasp out his life beside you-and you feel none of it. Pity, Sympathy, sure-but you don't feel the pain. Your belly is whole and that's what counts. A half-yard away someone's world is snu...”