The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority.

To buy books would be a good thing if we could also buy the time to read them; but the purchase of books is often mistaken for the assimilation and mastering of their contents.

Life is short and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.

As the strata of the earth preserve in succession the living creatures of past epochs, so the shelves of libraries preserve in succession the errors of the past and their expositions, which like the former were very lively and made a great commotion in their own age but now stand petrified and stiff in a place where only the literary palaeontologist regards them.

To overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence.

To desire immortality for the individual is really the same as wanting to perpetuate an error forever.

The world is my representation