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

One should never trust a person who, while assuring you of something, puts his hands on his heart.

I would give something to know for whose sake precisely those deeds were really done which report says were done for the fatherland.

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

The writer who cannot sometimes throw away a thought about which another man would have written dissertations, without worry whether or not the reader will find it, will never become a great writer.

People often become scholars for the same reason they become soldiers: simply because they are unfit for any other station. Their right hand has to earn them a livelihood; one might say they lie down like bears in winter and seek sustenance from their paws.

Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.