With God thoughts are colors, with us they are pigments-even the most abstract one may be accompanied by physical pain.

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

Diogenes, filthily attired, paced across the splendid carpets in Plato's dwelling. Thus, said he, do I trample on the pride of Plato. Yes, Plato replied, but only with another kind of pride.

What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesses reflected back from others.

Man is a masterpiece of creation . . .

One is rarely an impulsive innovator after the age of sixty, but one can still be a very fine orderly and inventive thinker. One rarely procreates children at that age, but one is all the more skilled at educating those who have already been procreated, and education is procreation of another kind.

In the world we live in, one fool makes many fools, but one sage only a few sages.