Religion should be disentangled as much as possible from history and authority and metaphysics, and made to rest honestly on one's fine feelings, on one's indomitable optimism and trust in life.

Culture is on the horns of this dilemma: if profound and noble it must remain rare, if common it must become mean.

A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.

Gnomic wisdom, however, is notoriously polychrome, and proverbs depend for their truth entirely on the occasion they are applied to. Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.

Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.

It would hardly be possible to exaggerate man's wretchedness if it were not so easy to overestimate his sensibility

Intelligence is quickness in seeing things as they are.