Humility is not renunciation of pride but the substitution of one pride for another.

Those who are in love with the present can be cruel and corrupt but not genuinely vicious. They cannot be methodically and consistently ruthless.

It is a talent of the weak to persuade themselves that they suffer for something when they suffer from something; that they are showing the way when they are running away; that they see the light when they feel the heat; that they are chosen when they are shunned.

We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.

Children, savages and true believers remember far less what they have seen than what they have heard.

To dispose a soul to action we must upset its equilibrium.