Man is a masterpiece of creation, if only because no amount of determinism can prevent him from believing that he acts as a free being.

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.

God doesn't act like the Church. No, instead, the Church must act like God.

Knowledge as such can never be worthless.

Why you’ll never see a woman with a bomb in her shoe: we have too much respect for shoes.

Comparisons are odious.

What is speed? The sports press often confuses speed with insight. See, if I start running slightly earlier than someone else, I seem faster.

Dependency is death to initiative, to risk-taking and opportunity.

That man is rich indeed who has more friends than enemies, fears no one, and is so busy building that he has no time to devote to tearing down another's hopes and plans.

In gymnastics, you have to be perfect every step along the way.

Although I am ready to defend what I have said, many people expect me to defend what others have attributed to me.

Leadership is getting someone to do what they don't want to do but to achieve what they want to achieve.