A child of my own! Oh, no, no, no! Let my flesh perish with me, and let me not transmit to anyone the boredom and ignominiousness of life.
Our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times. People have always been like this.
...exaggerated turns of speech conceal mediocre affections: as if the fulness of the soul might not sometimes overflow in the emptiest of metaphors, since no one, ever, can give the exact measurements of his needs, nor of his conceptions, nor of his sufferings, and the human word is like a cracked cauldron upon which we beat out melodies fit for making bears dance when we are trying to move the stars to pity.
To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.
The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.