Knowing things halfway is a greater success than knowing things completely: it takes things to be simpler than they really are andso makes its opinions more easily understandable and persuasive.

Whoever has overthrown an existing law of custom has always first been accounted a bad man: but when, as did happen, the law could not afterwards be reinstated and this fact was accepted, the predicate gradually changed; - history treats almost exclusively of these bad men who subsequently became good men!

The relatives of a suicide hold it against him that out of consideration for their reputation he did not remain alive.

All idealism is falsehood in the face of necessity.

We are in the greatest danger of being run over when we have just gotten out of the way of a carriage.

Among the wealthy, generosity is often merely a kind of shyness.

Morality is neither rational nor absolute nor natural. World has known many moral systems, each of which advances claims universality; all moral systems are therefore particular, serving a specific purpose for their propagators or creators, and enforcing a certain regime that disciplines human beings for social life by narrowing our perspectives and limiting our horizons.