| Man can acquire accomplishments or he can become an animal, whichever he wants. God makes the animals, man makes himself. |
| Before we blame, we should first see if we can't excuse. |
| To read means to borrow to create out of one's readings is paying off one's debts. |
| To receive applause for works which do not demand all our powers hinders our advance towards a perfecting of our spirit. It usually means that thereafter we stand still. |
| I am always grieved when a man of real talent dies, for the world needs such men more than heaven does. |
| There are people who think that everything one does with a serious face is sensible. |
| A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents. |
| He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage he won't encounter many rivals. |
| Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it. |
| Affectation is a very good word when someone does not wish to confess to what he would none the less like to believe of himself. |
| He was then in his fifty-fourth year, when even in the case of poets reason and passion begin to discuss a peace treaty and usually conclude it not very long afterwards. |
| It is in the gift for employing all the vicissitudes of life to one's own advantage and to that of one's craft that a large part of genius consists. |
| I cannot say whether things will get better if we change what I can say is they must change if they are to get better. |
| Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all. |
| Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together. |
| The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle. |
| One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything. |
| What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our eyes |
| First there is a time when we believe everything, then for a little while we believe with discrimination, then we believe nothing whatever, and then we believe everything again - and, moreover, give reasons why we believe. |
| Don't judge a man by his opinions, but what his opinions have made of him. |
| Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own. |
| To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation. |
| With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another. |
