Nature is like a beautiful woman that may be as delightfully and as truly known at a certain distance as upon a closer view; as to knowing her through and through; that is nonsense in both cases, and might not reward our pains.

There is a kind of courtesy in skepticism. It would be an offense against polite conventions to press our doubts too far.

The world is so ordered that we must, in a material sense, lose everything we have and love, one thing after another, until we ourselves close our eyes.

The dreamer can know no truth, not even about his dream, except by awaking out of it.

Man has an inexhuastible faculty for lying, especially to himself.

Logic, like language, is partly a free construction and partly a means of symbolizing and harnessing in expression the existing diversities of things; and whilst some languages, given a man's constitution and habits, may seem more beautiful and convenient to him than others, it is a foolish heat in a patriot to insist that only his native language is intelligible or right.

It is possible to be a master in false philosophy, easier, in fact, than to be a master in the truth, because a false philosophy can be made as simple and consistent as one pleases.