Apart from man, no being wonders at its own experience.

Memory works like the collection glass in the Camera obscura: it gathers everything together and therewith produces a far more beautiful picture than was present originally.

One man is more concerned with the impression he makes on the rest of mankind, another with the impression the rest of mankind makes on him.

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.

It is only the hope of what is claimed that begets and nurishes the wish.

The weakness of their reasoning faculty also explains why women show more sympathy for the unfortunate than men;... and why, on the contrary, they are inferior to men as regards justice, and less honourable and conscientious.

Every genius is a great child; he gazes out at the world as something strange, a spectacle, and therefore with purely objective interest