The ordinary method of education is to imprint ideas and opinions, in the strict sense of the word, prejudices, on the mind of the child, before it has had any but a very few particular observations. It is thus that he afterwards comes to view the world and gather experience through the medium of those ready-made ideas, rather than to let his ideas be formed for him out of his own experience of life, as they ought to be.

The first forty years of our life give the text, the next thirty furnish the commentary upon it, which enables us rightly to understand the true meaning and connection of the text with its moral and its beauties.

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

Consciousness is the mere surface of our minds, of which, as of the earth, we do not know the inside, but only the crust.

The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy.

The animal lacks both anxiety and hope because its consciousness is restricted to what is clearly evident and thus to the present moment: the animal is the present incarnate.

The greatest intellectual capacities are only found in connection with a vehement and passionate will.