 Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head. |
| Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax. |
| The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time. |
| It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain. |
| The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him. |
| Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with one's own. |
| We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people. |
| They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person. |
| Rascals are always sociable, more's the pity! and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others' company. |
| Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly. |
| Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world. |
| Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune. |
| National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right. |
| Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see. |
| Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect. |
| The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body. |
| The greatest achievements of the human mind are generally received with distrust. |
| The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value. |
| The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice. |
| Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed. |
