One cannot demand of a scholar that he show himself a scholar everywhere in society, but the whole tenor of his behavior must none the less betray the thinker, he must always be instructive, his way of judging a thing must even in the smallest matters be such that people can see what it will amount to when, quietly and self-collected, he puts this power to scholarly use.

Much reading has brought upon us a learned barbarism.

Much can be inferred about a man from his mistress: in her one beholds his weaknesses and his dreams.

Bad writers are those who try to express their own feeble ideas in the language of good ones.

There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.