The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.

Every parting gives a foretaste of death; every remeeting a foretaste of the resurrection. That is why even people who are indifferent to each other rejoice so much if they meet again after twenty or thirty years of separation.

To truth only a brief celebration of victory is allowed between the two long periods during which it is condemned as paradoxical, or disparaged as trivial.

Freedom of the press is to the machinery of the state what the safety valve is to the steam engine.

Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.

A man may call to mind the face of his friend, but not his own. Here, then, is an initial difficulty in the way of applying the maxim, Know Thyself.

First the truth is ridiculed. Then it meets outrage. Then it is said to have been obvious all along.