You do miracles if you concentrate your mind on one thing and one thing only.
Nothing in human affairs is worth any great anxiety.
He who is of a calm and happy nature, will hardly feel the pressure of age
The most important part of education is proper training in the nursery.
'But the man who is ready to taste every form of knowledge, is glad to learn and never satisfied - he's the man who deserves to be called a philosopher, isn't he?'
Hardly any human being is capable of pursuing two professions or two arts rightly.
The whole life of the philosopher is a preparation for death.
Almost Kien was tempted to believe in happiness, that contemptible life-goal of illiterates. If it came of itself, without being hunted for, if you did not hold it fast by force and treated it with a certain condescension, it was permissible to endure its presence for a few days
Scholarship was one thing, drudgery another. I very soon concluded that nothing would induce me to read, let alone make notes on, hundreds and hundreds of very, very, very boring books.
Restlessness is my nemesis. It's hard to just chill and sit still.
I've been coming to Cambodia off and on, six months of the year usually.