Young people love what is interesting and odd, no matter how true or false it is. More mature minds love what is interesting and odd about truth. Fully mature intellects, finally, love truth, even when it appears plain and simple, boring to the ordinary person; for they have noticed that truth tends to reveal its highest wisdom in the guise of simplicity.

Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.

One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.

Over immense periods of time the intellect produced nothing but errors. A few of these proved to be useful and helped to preserve the species: those who hit upon or inherited these had better luck in their struggle for themselves and their progeny. Such erroneous articles of faith... include the following: that there are things, substances, bodies; that a thing is what it appears to be; that our will is free; that what is good for me is also good in itself.

The disgust with dirt can be so great that it keeps us from cleaning ourselves--from "justifying" ourselves.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what there is to love in man is that he is a going-over and a going-under.

Do you suppose that sacrifice is the hallmark of moral action?--Just stop to consider whether sacrifice is not involved in every action that is done with deliberation, the worst as well as the best.