“The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings. His passions are mere appearances, being sterile. They are dissipated in futile imaginings, producing nothing external to themselves.”

When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.

The wise man, knowing how to enjoy achieved results without having constantly to replace them with others, finds in them an attachment to life in the hour of difficulty.

It is only by historical analysis that we can discover what makes up man, since it is only in the course of history that he is formed.

Science cannot describe individuals, but only types. If human societies cannot be classified, they must remain inaccessible to scientific description.

Religious phenomena are naturally arranged in two fundamental categories: beliefs and rites. The first are states of opinion, and consist in representations; the second are determined modes of action.

Faith is not uprooted by dialectic proof; it must already be deeply shaken by other causes to be unable to withstand the shock of argument.

Men have been obliged to make for themselves a notion of what religion is, long before the science of religions started its methodical comparisons.

Socialism is not a science, a sociology in miniature: it is a cry of pain.

One does not advance when one walks toward no goal, or – which is the same thing – when his goal is infinity.

It is not human nature which can assign the variable limits necessary to our needs. They are thus unlimited so far as they depend on the individual alone. Irrespective of any external regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss.

Man cannot become attached to higher aims and submit to a rule if he sees nothing above him to which he belongs. To free him from all social pressure is to abandon him to himself and demoralize him.

Our whole social environment seems to us to be filled with forces which really exist only in our own minds.

Sadness does not inhere in things; it does not reach us from the world and through mere contemplation of the world. It is a product of our own thought. We create it out of whole cloth.

Irrespective of any external, regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss.

A person is not merely a single subject distinguished from all the others. It is especially a being to which is attributed a relative autonomy in relation to the environment with which it is most immediately in contact.

Too cheerful a morality is a loose morality; it is appropriate only to decadent peoples and is found only among them.

That one plant should be sown and another be produced cannot happen; whatever seed is sown, a plant of that kind even comes forth.

Creative thinking is not a talent, it is a skill that can be learned. It empowers people by adding strength to their natural abilities which improves teamwork, productivity and, where appropriate, profits.

We may imagine Chance and Design to be, as it were, in Competition with each other, for the production of some sorts of Events, and may calculate

Mere elegance of language can produce at best but an empty renown.

Opportunity ideas do not lie around waiting to be discovered. Such ideas need to be produced.

Removing the faults in a stage-coach may produce a perfect stage-coach, but it is unlikely to produce the first motor car.

True salvation always produces an abiding change of nature in a true convert. Therefore, whenever holiness of life does not accompany a confession of conversion, it must be understood that this individual is not a Christian.

The analysis of data will not by itself produce new ideas.