A nation that still believes in itself holds fast to its own god.

It is nobler to declare oneself wrong than to insist on being right --especially when one is right.

The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.

We criticize a man or a book most sharply when we sketch out their ideal.

We talk about taking "pleasure in a thing": but in truth it is pleasure in ourselves, mediated by a thing.

One must need to be strong, otherwise one will never become strong.

But this people has deliberately made itself stupid, for nearly a millennium: nowhere have the two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity, been abused more dissolutely.