The proof that man is the noblest of all creatures is that no other creature has ever denied it.

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.

When you create a soul, plant the seeds of love with your thoughts, words, and actions . The soul flourishes among the flow-ers of love.

My mother is quiet. The way he acts, she thinks it must mean he doesn't love her as much as she loves him

There never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers.

I feel that what mathematics needs least are pundits who issue prescriptions or guidelines for presumably less enlightened mortals.

You may forget that you are at every moment totally dependent on God.

It doesn't matter where we begin the personal/political circle, but it matters desperately that we complete it.

I blame my mother for nothing, but forgive her for everything.

I will not abridge my freedoms so as not to offend savages, freedom of speech is under violent assault here.

Let it be fact, one feels, or let it be fiction; the imagination will not serve under two masters simultaneously.

It is a bird-flight of the soul, when the heart declares itself in song. The affections that clothe themselves with wings are passions that have been subdued to virtues.