Nothing will ever please me, no matter how excellent or beneficial, if I must retain the knowledge of it to myself. And if wisdom were given me under the express condition that it must be kept hidden and not uttered, I should refuse it.No good thing is pleasant to possess, without friends to share it.

distringit librorum multitudo (the abundance of books is distraction)

If you apply yourself to study you will avoid all boredom with life, you will not long for night because you are sick of daylight, you will be neither a burden to yourself nor useless to others, you will attract many to become your friends and the finest people will flock about you.

So the life of a philosopher extends widely: he is not confined by the same boundary as are others. He alone is free from the laws that limit the human race, and all ages serve him as though he were a god.

[...] so läßt der, welcher der Lust nachjagt, alles andere liegen, und die Freiheit ist das erste, was er preisgibt [...]

Zu den herrlichsten Schätzen, die durch die Bemühungen anderer aus der Finsternis ans Licht gezogen sind, werden wir geführt; kein Zeitalter ist uns verschlossen, zu allen haben wir Zutritt [...]Die Zusammenfassung aller Zeiten macht ihm [/ihr] das Leben lang.

A man is as much a fool for shedding tears because he isn't going to be alive a thousand years from now.

why should I demand from fortune that she should give me this and that rather than demand from myself that I should not ask for them? why should I ask for them, after all? am I to pile them up in total forgetfulness of the frailty of human existence?

Even in the longest life real living is the least portion thereof.