If all art aspires to the condition of music, all the sciences aspire to the condition of mathematics.

The muffled syllables that Nature speaks Fill us with deeper longing for her word; She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks, She makes a sweeter music than is heard.

History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten. ...What is interesting is brought forward as if it had been central and efficacious in the march of events, and harmonies are turned into causes. Kings and generals are endowed with motives appropriate to what the historian values in their actions; plans are imputed to them prophetic of their actual achievements, while the thoughts that really preoccupied them remain buried in absolute oblivion.

A man's memory may almost become the art of continually varying and misrepresenting his past, according to his interest in the present.

Prayer is not a substitute for work; it is an effort to work further and be efficient beyond the range of one's powers.

Wealth, religion, military victory have more rhetorical than efficacious worth.

It is true that I am carrying out various methods of treatment recommended by doctors and dentists in the hope of dying in the remote future in perfect health.