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

Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one’s fatherland, which is perishable?

Passions destroy more prejudices than philosophy does.

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.

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.

In order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it.

I have said more than once, that I hold space to be something purely relative, as time; an order of coexistences, as time is an order of successions.

As far as beauty is concerned, in order to be confident we must accept that the way we look and feel is our own responsibility.

We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves.

What we seek to accomplish is cool, But what are we willing to sacrifice in order to make it happen!

All places where women are excluded tend downward to barbarism; but the moment she is introduced, there come in with her courtesy, cleanliness, sobriety, and order.

It’s not where you’re trying to go in life that is the problem, it’s what are you willing to leave behind in order to get there.

How does a man decide in what order to abandon his life?