Honest unaffected distrust of human abilities under all circumstances is the surest sign of strength of mind.

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.

One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.

If there were only turnips and potatoes in the world, someone would complain that plants grow the wrong way.

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.

To read means to borrow; to create out of one s readings is paying off one's debts.

Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.

He who understands the wise is wise already.

Positive mind, positive life.

The soul evolves as a person addresses the chaos, vagaries, and perplexities of enduring an earthly life. We each ultimately become our own version of an ideal self by stage-managing who we become.

Want is an empty void — your real value is full and abundant.

The future which we hold in trust for our own children will be shaped by our fairness to other people's children.

Don't let people tell you your ideas won't work. If you're passionate about an idea that's stuck in your head, find a way to build it so you can prove to yourself that it doesn't work.

We should always be aspiring to know more, and to better ourselves, and to improve ourselves. To improve ourselves, because that's how we improve the world around us, by working within us.

Jews are just like everyone else, only more so.

People who work hard for their money cannot be placed in a worse position that those who allow their money to work for them.

What we believe to be the motives of our conduct are usually but the pretexts for it.

Learn from both your mistakes and successes because if you learn only from your mistakes you will only learn more errors