In our own presence, we all pretend to be simpler than we are: thus we take a break from our fellow human beings.

Great men's errors are to be venerated as more fruitful than little men's truths.

Close beside my knowledge lies my black ignorance.

A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.

A few hours of mountain climbing make a blackguard and a saint two rather similar creatures.

All philosophy is a form of confession.

The sensible author writes for no other posterity than his own--that is, for his age--so as to be able even then to take pleasurein himself.