“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.”

“The value of doing something does not lie in the ease or difficulty, the probability or improbability of its achievement, but in the vision, the plan, the determination and the perseverance, the ef...”

“Of what use can our labour be, when the labours we record are in themselves entirely useless?”

“Anything that just costs money is cheap.”

“The only person who needs to know about failure is yourself.”

“I have tried every diet to lose weight. When you restrict yourself, you're setting yourself up for failure.”

“We've all experienced those days when we feel like an absolute failure. It's a normal feeling when things don't go as exactly planned. And, when we feel like that, it's challenging to think of your...”

“It was four o'clock of a stickily wet Saturday. As long as it is anything from Monday to Friday the average library attendant goes around thanking her stars she isn't a school-teacher; but the last...”

“The world is quiet here.”

“I've always said, stuff the engagement ring! Just build me a really big library.”