Instinct guides the animal better than the man. In the animal it is pure, in man it is led astray by his reason and intelligence.

In general, children, like men, and men, like children, prefer entertainment to education.

We swallow with one gulp the lie that flatters us, and drink drop by drop the truth which is bitter to us.

When shall we see poets born? After a time of disasters and great misfortunes, when harrowed nations begin to breathe again. And then, shaken by the terror of such spectacles, imaginations will paint things entirely strange to those who have not witnessed them.

In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice.

I picture the vast realm of the sciences as an immense landscape scattered with patches of dark and light. The goal towards which we must work is either to extend the boundaries of the patches of light, or to increase their number. One of these tasks falls to the creative genius; the other requires a sort of sagacity combined with perfectionism.

When we know to read our own hearts, we acquire wisdom of the heartsof others.