“The art of living has no history: it does not evolve: the pleasure which vanishes vanishes for good, there is no substitute for it. Other pleasures come, which replace nothing., nothing but mutations.”

“Gone.
Vanished.
Nothing left.
Nothing said.”

“The field equation may… be given a geometrical foundation, at least to a first approximation, by replacing it with the requirement that the mean curvature of the space vanish at any point at which no heat is being applied to the medium—in complete analogy with… the general theory of relativity by which classical field equations are replaced by the requirement that the Ricci contracted curvature tensor vanish.”

“Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.”

“Good food, good sex, good digestion, good sleep: to these basic animal pleasures, man has added nothing but the good cigarette.”

“All who delight in the pleasures of the belly, exceeding all measure in eating and drinking and love, find that the pleasures are brief and last but a short while—only so long as they are eating and drinking—but the pains that come after are many and endure. The longing for the same things keeps ever returning, and whenever the objects of one's desire are realized forthwith the pleasure vanishes, and one has no further use for them. The pleasure is brief, and once more the need for the same things returns.”

“Pleasure is the only thing one should live for, nothing ages like happiness.”

“The art of music is good, for the reason, among others, that it produces pleasure; but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good? If, then, it is asserted that there is a comprehensive formula, including all things which are in themselves good, and that whatever else is good, is not so as an end, but as a mean, the formula may be accepted or rejected, but is not a subject of what is commonly understood by proof.”

“We seek—we find—
And find the charm has with the search declined.
Affections—pleasures—all in which we trust, —
What do they end in?—Nothing, or disgust.”

“If we vanished tomorrow, no organism on this planet would miss us. Nothing in nature needs us.”