The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body.

Every hero is a Samson. The strong man succumbs to the intrigues of the weak and the many; and if in the end he loses all patience he crushes both them and himself.

To be alone is the fate of all great minds—a fate deplored at times, but still always chosen as the less grievous of two evils.

Just as the largest library, badly arranged, is not so useful as a very moderate one that is well arranged, so the greatest amount of knowledge, if not elaborated by our own thoughts, is worth much less than a far smaller volume that has been abundantly and repeatedly thought over.

Life is a task to be done. It is a fine thing to say defunctus est; it means that the man has done his task.

What makes people hard-hearted is this, that each man has, or fancies he has, as much as he can bear in his own troubles.

(Politeness is) a tacit agreement that people's miserable defects, whether moral or intellectual, shall on either side be ignored and not be made the subject of reproach.