One must learn to be a sponge if one wants to be loved by hearts that overflow.

[Heraclitus] did not require humans or their sort of knowledge, since everything into which one may inquire he despises [as being] in contrast [to his own] inward-turning wisdom. [To him] all learning from others is a sign of nonwisdom, because the wise man focuses his vision on his own intelligence.

If you have an enemy, do not requite him evil with good, for that would put him to shame. Rather prove that he did you some good.

We criticize a thinker more acutely when he advances a proposition that is disagreeable to us; and yet it would be more reasonableto do so when his proposition is agreeable to us.

The man who meets with a failure attributes this failure rather to the ill will of another than to fate.

A person unlearns arrogance when he knows he is always among worthy human beings; being alone fosters presumption. Young people are arrogant because they always associate with their own peers, those who are all really nothing but who would like to be very important.

Human, all too human.