1. Most people are really ugly! It's a pity they don't know they should be more approachable to make up for it.
2. The more intelligent a person is, the more they can endure hardship.3. People praise labor so much because it gives them "something." Foolish people become incredibly bored when they have nothing to do. Working with others is the only way to save them from boredom, but calling labor noble is laughable. To be idle requires versatility and high cultivation, or a unique mind.
4. Tolerance is another name for indifference.
5. Only those without opinions accept moral norms; those with opinions have their own principles.
6. The end of life is like reading at dusk, reading and reading without noticing the light dimming; only when they stop to rest do they suddenly realize that day has passed and it's dark; looking down at the book again, they can't see anything clearly, the pages have lost their meaning.
7. "Pain makes people noble"—of all the reasons people have invented to defend pain, this is the dumbest. This argument exists because Christianity felt it necessary to justify suffering. Suffering is merely a signal from the nerves informing the body that the current situation is harmful. If we say suffering makes people noble, then we could easily say that a danger signal makes a train noble. …In most cases, suffering does not improve a person's character; it only makes them rude and heartless. Hospitalized patients are a good example: physical pain makes them overly self-absorbed, selfish, grumbling, impatient, unjust, and greedy. I can list a long string of bad habits caused by suffering, but not a single good one. Poverty is also a kind of suffering. …Poverty makes them both greedy and despicable, both cunning and hypocritical. …If their economic conditions were slightly better, they would certainly be upright and noble people, but under the torment of poverty, they lose their sense of shame.
8. For an individual, morality can at most express personal satisfaction; it is merely an aesthetic matter.
9. Foreigners who want to gain a deep understanding of a different people rely on reading, and in this regard, reading second-rate writers is more useful than first-rate writers. Great writers create, while lesser writers imitate. Chekhov can tell you far more about Russians than Dostoevsky.
10. In my youth, I pretended to know everything. This often got me into trouble, making me look like a fool. I think one of the most useful discoveries of my life is how easy it is to say "I don't know." I haven't noticed anyone looking down on me for it. The only inconvenience is that once you indicate you don't know something, some people will go on and on, telling you all about it with great enthusiasm. But there are many things in this world that I simply don't want to know.
11. I've never really trusted writers' theories; they're always just excuses for their own inadequacies. So, if a writer can't come up with a plausible story, he'll tell you that storytelling is the least important talent for a novelist; and if he lacks a sense of humor, he'll lament that humor ruins his novels.
12. I have no extraordinary talent, but I have a strong character, which more or less compensates for my other shortcomings. I have common sense and reason. Most people can't see anything, but I can see things clearly right in front of me. The greatest writers can see through brick walls, but my vision isn't that sharp. For a long time, people have said I'm cynical, but I've just always told the truth. I am who I am, and I don't want others to see me differently; on the other hand, I don't feel I need to accept other people's pretense.
13. A lady's son had some literary talent, and one day she asked me how I would train him if he wanted to become a writer. I guessed the questioner wouldn't take my answer seriously, so I replied, "Give him 150 pounds a year for five years, and let him go to hell." Later, I thought about it and realized that this suggestion was actually quite good, much better than I had imagined at the time. With this meager amount of money, the young man wouldn't starve, but he wouldn't enjoy life either. Great writing is often accompanied by bad luck, and enjoyment is a writer's greatest enemy. With this meager sum, he could travel the world, and because of his limited funds, he would be more likely to witness the richness and vibrancy of life than those with more money. With only this meager sum, he would often be penniless, struggling to make ends meet by taking on various interesting jobs. …Although truly excellent writers often live in poverty, they write exceptionally well, not because of their circumstances, but precisely because they are unaffected by them. …He doesn't need to excel at anything, but he needs to do a little bit of everything. In my opinion, he should be a tinkerer, a tailor, a soldier, a sailor—everything; let him be heartbroken, hungry, and drunk; let him play cards with San Francisco scoundrels, gamble with Newmark's horse scouts, flirt with the Duchess of Paris, debate with the philosophers of Bonn, ride bulls with Seville's bullfighters, and swim in the South Pacific with the Canaka people. Everyone in the world is worth befriending for a writer: everything is grain in his mill. Oh, to have such talent, be only twenty-three, and have five years of travel ahead of you, with one hundred and fifty pounds a year—how wonderful that would be!
14. People always make a big deal out of writing style… We strive for balanced, rhythmic sentences. We read sentences aloud to see if they sound good… Yet, in reality, the four greatest novelists of all time—Balzac, Dickens, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky—didn't care about language at all when they were writing. This proves that if you can tell a story, create characters, design plots, and if you are sincere and passionate, then your language is completely irrelevant. Anyway, it's always better to write well than badly. (It is good!)
15. A novelist is finished unless he can make people believe him, but if he is completely believable, he may become dull.
16. Subtlety and nuance are talents; if you have them, they will naturally show—they cannot be suppressed. It's like originality: no one can achieve originality through effort alone. An original artist is simply being himself; his way of expressing things is what he feels is most normal and obvious: because that method of expression is novel and new to you, you call him original.
17. A person's life is not governed by his philosophy of life; his philosophy merely expresses his desires, instincts, and weaknesses.
18. How wonderful life would be if things could end as interestingly as they began, and the leftovers as sweetly as the first sip.
19. The vast majority of people are incredibly stupid; saying someone is superior to others is hardly a compliment.
20. There are two kinds of friendship in the world. One kind stems from a physical attraction; you like your friend not because of any special qualities or talents, but simply because you are attracted to him. He has a wealth of experience that amazes you.
21. Wisdom is a versatile weapon; man has no other weapons besides this, and wisdom is ineffective against instinct.
22. Love is primarily an instinct for procreation, which manifests in the fact that most men fall in love with any woman they meet. If they can't win over the first woman they admire, they quickly turn their attention to the next. (Regardless of gender, when love comes, many people think they will be the lucky exception, which is wishful thinking.)
23. People always marvel at the romantic affairs of poets and artists, but they should actually marvel more at their talent for language. Some things that happen to ordinary people go unnoticed, but become extremely interesting when they happen to talented writers. Whether something is meaningful depends on who it happens to.
24. The ideal woman in a man's mind is still a princess from a fairy tale, someone who can't sleep if there's a dry pea under seven layers of blankets. Men are always afraid of women who are strong-willed and calm in the face of adversity. (People view relationships between the sexes as too mysterious, leading to endless worries.)
25. Just as savages restrain themselves from harming their companions for fear of retaliation, so too does the relationship between man and society.
26. Bestowing favors is a great pleasure, and external praise amplifies this pleasure. But the best man rarely considers whether others will take advantage of his kindness. Moreover, he is not content with merely deriving pleasure from it; he also expects gratitude.
27. The relationship between the individual and society is like roulette. Society is the house. Individuals sometimes win and sometimes lose, but the house always wins.
28. Only subjective arbitrariness can govern others. This is why those with strong opinions, prejudices, and passions, rather than philosophers, lead the people. But philosophers console themselves with the thought that they disdain leading a despicable mob.
29. The hardest thing for a person to do is realize that they are not the center of life, but merely on the periphery.
31. One of the significant differences between Christianity and science is that the former acknowledges and values individual worth, while the latter, science, doesn't take people seriously at all.
32. Only when a person's character is shaped by thought, vitality, and passion does he become beautiful with age.
33. Anyone can be brave; that's just a sign of a lack of imagination.
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