Ordinary people merely think how they shall 'spend' their time; a man of talent tries to 'use' it.

Although as a rule the absurd culminates, and it seems impossible for the voice of the individual ever to penetrate through the chorus of foolers and fooled, still there is left to the genuine works of all times a quite peculiar, silent, slow, and powerful influence; and as if by a miracle, we see them rise at last out of the turmoil like a balloon that floats up out of the thick atmosphere of this globe into purer regions. Having once arrived there, it remains at rest, and no one can any longer draw it down again.

There is a wide difference between the original thinker and the merely learned man.

It is, indeed, only in old age that intellectual men attain their sublime expression, whilst portraits of them in their youth show only the first traces of it.

Something of great importance now past is inferior to something of little importance now present, in that the latter is a reality, and related to the former as something to nothing.

If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad ones; for life is short, and time and energy limited.

The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.