To travel is to discover that everybody is wrong. The philosophies, the civilizations which seem, at a distance, so superior to those current at home, all prove on a close inspection to be in their own way just as hopelessly imperfect.

Back to culture. Yes, actually to culture. You can’t consume much if you sit still and read books.

Most vices demand considerable self-sacrifices. There is no greater mistake than to suppose that a vicious life is a life of uninterrupted pleasure. It is a life almost as wearisome and painful -- if strenuously led -- as Christian's in The Pilgrim's Progress.

Medical science has made such tremendous progress that there is hardly a healthy human left.

We are not our own any more than what we possess is our own. We did not make ourselves, we cannot be supreme over ourselves. We are not our own masters.

Folly is often more cruel in the consequences than malice can be in the intent.

I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.