“Yet, every now and then, there would pass a young girl, slender, fair and desirable, arousing in young men a not ignoble desire to possess her, and stirring in old men regrets for ecstasy not seized and now forever past.”

It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel.

All changes, even the most longed for, must have their melancholy

We do not know what to do with this short life, yet we yearn for another that will be eternal.

The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever.

All ought to be common among friends.

We should adopt his principles and govern men as they are and not as what we’d like them to be.

Suffering — how divine it is, how misunderstood! We owe to it all that is good in us, all that gives value to life; we owe to it pity, we owe to it courage, we owe to it all the virtues.

The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of the mind for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.

If 50 million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.

A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.

We chase dreams and embrace shadows.

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.

To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything.

It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion.

If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.