Pantheism is only a polite form of atheism.

If anyone spends almost the whole day in reading...he gradually loses the capacity for thinking...This is the case with many learned persons; they have read themselves stupid

The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

Two Chinamen visiting Europe went to the theatre for the first time. One of them occupied himself with trying to understand the theatrical machinery, which he succeeded in doing. The other, despite his ignorance of the language, sought to unravel the meaning of the play. The former is like the astronomer, the latter the philosopher.

The mother of useful arts is necessity; that of the fine arts is luxury. For father the former has intellect; the latter genius, which itself is a kind of luxury.

Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.