“The wisest among us is very lucky never to have met the woman, be she beautiful or ugly, intelligent or stupid, who could drive him crazy enough to be fit to be put into an asylum.”

One may demand of me that I should seek truth, but not that I should find it.

Every man has his dignity. I’m willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to.

Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.

Posterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man.

No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.

He whom we call a gentleman is no longer the man of Nature.

We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates.

I feel, I think, I judge; therefore, a part of organized matter like me is capable of feeling, thinking, and judging.

Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.

It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all.

The best mannered people make the most absurd lovers.

Instinct guides the animal better than the man. In the animal it is pure, in man it is led astray by his reason and intelligence.

Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.

We are constantly railing against the passions; we ascribe to them all of man’s afflictions, and we forget that they are also the source of all his pleasures.

Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs.

There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.

It’s mainly the high-end luxury market now that drives much of the fishing in the sea. It’s not feeding the starving millions. It’s feeding a luxury market.

I do quite like that Andrew Lloyd Webber song from ‘Cats.’ What’s it called? ‘Memory?’ Sends shivers up your spine.

If I didn’t swim my best, I’d think about it at school, at dinner, with my friends. It would drive me crazy.

I’d probably want to teach at university, because children would drive me insane. I suspect it would be English literature, Shakespeare and so forth. I’ve always been deeply, deeply in love with that kind of thing.

Age doesn’t affect driving – how do you like that?

My drive is other people’s success.

The United States is the only country where a driver can have a successful career – either in stock cars or IndyCar – and he won’t need a passport.

Same with golf: pick up a club. But not many can go out and get in a race car and experience a drive at over 200 miles an hour.