Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious.

When I look at what the world does and where people nowadays believe they can find happiness, I am not sure that that is true happiness. The happiness of these ordinary people seems to consist in slavishly imitating the majority, as if this were their only choice. And yet they all believe they are happy. I cannot decide whether that is happiness or not. Is there such a thing as happiness?

Those who realize their folly are not true fools.

That knowledge which stops at what it does not know, is the highest knowledge.

A dog is not considered good because of his barking, and a man is not considered clever because of his ability to talk.

When the shoe fits, the foot is forgotten; when the belt fits, the belly is forgotten; when the heart is right, "for" and "against" are forgotten. There is no change in what is inside, no following what is outside, when the adjustment to events is comfortable. One begins with what is comfortable and never experiences what is uncomfortable, when one knows the comfort of forgetting what is comfortable.

The knowledge of the ancients reached the highest point-the time before anything existed. This is the highest point. It is exhaustive. There is no adding to it.

The living all find death unpleasant; men mourn over it. And yet, what is death, but the unbending of the bow and its return to its case?

The skull opened its eyes wide, furrowed its brows, and said, "Why should I throw away a happiness greater than a king's to once again thrust myself into the troubles and anxieties of mankind?"

I was given life because it was my time, and now I take leave of it according to the same law. Content with the natural sequence of these events, I am touched neither by joy nor by grief. I am simply hanging in the air ... incapable of freeing myself, tied by the threads of things.