“In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.”

The infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned.

First of all move me, surprise me, rend my heart; make me tremble, weep, shudder; outrage me; delight my eyes afterwards if you can.

Scepticism is the first step towards truth.

What a fine comedy this world would be if one did not play a part in it.

There are things I can’t force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint.

Shakespeare’s fault is not the greatest into which a poet may fall. It merely indicates a deficiency of taste.

The best doctor is the one you run to and can’t find.

The world is the house of the strong.

Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.

Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.

Only God and some few rare geniuses can keep forging ahead into novelty.

Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.

In order to get as much fame as one’s father one has to much more able than he.

Only passions, and great passions, can raise the soul to great things. Without them there is no sublimity, either in morals or in creativity. Art returns to infancy, and virtue becomes small-minded.

Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: ‘My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.’ This stranger is a theologian.

Oh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them.