“A well-cultivated mind is, so to speak, made up of all the minds of preceding ages; it is only one single mind which has been educated during all this time.”

Hardly anyone knows how much is gained by ignoring the future.

I have lived one hundred years; and I die with the consolation of never having thrown the slightest ridicule upon the smallest virtue.

The judgment may be compared to a clock or watch, where the most ordinary machine is sufficient to tell the hours; but the most elaborate alone can point out the minutes and seconds, and distinguish the smallest differences of time.

A work of morality, politics, criticism will be more elegant, other things being equal, if it is shaped by the hand of geometry.

Mathematicians are like lovers. Grant a mathematician the least principle, and he will draw from it a consequence which you must also grant him, and from this consequence another.

We must always skim over pleasures. They are like marshy lands that we must travel nimbly, hardly daring to put down our feet.

As astronomy is the daughter of idleness, geometry is the daughter of property.

Since the princes take the Earth for their own, it’s fair that the philosophers reserve the sky for themselves and rule there, but they should never permit the entry of others.

It is beauty that begins to please, and tenderness that completes the cbarm.

Our sun enlightens the planets that belong to him; why may not every fixed star also have planets to which they give light?

A true philosopher is like an elephant; he never puts the second foot down until the first one is solidly in place.

A philospher sees the Earth as a large planet, travelling through the heavens, covered with fools

I feel nothing, apart from a certain difficulty in continuing to exist.

It takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes.

If I had my hand full of truth, I would take good care how I opened it.

People almost always do great things without knowing how to do them, and are quite surprised to have done them.

In all the time that people have known me, has anyone ever heard me talk about the importance of rushing records or finishing with the most touchdowns? So if that’s never been important to me, then why would that be a motivation to keep playing?

An acting teacher once told me, ‘Greet everything with yes… Even if you abandon one idea for another one, saying yes allows you to move forward.’

Poverty is not a character failing or a lack of motivation. Poverty is a shortage of money.

Goals are harmful unless they guide you to make specific behaviors easier to do. Don’t focus your motivation on doing Behavior X. Instead, focus on making Behavior X easier to do.

The worst that could happen is I lose my company and go back to being a waitress. I don’t think money’s a great aspiration for a lot of people that succeed. They they have other motivations that turn them on. And money was not one of mine.

If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business.

This is why so many churches quench the motivation of people for ministry. In our shoes, Paul would say: Remember the grace God has showered on you—what does living out and enjoying that grace look like in this situation?

We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have.