It's not our disadvantages or shortcomings that are ridiculous, but rather the studious way we try to hide them, and our desire to act as if they did not exist.

We remember childhood as the fabulous years of our lives, and nations remember their childhood as fabulous years.

Every man remembers his childhood as a kind of mythical age, just as every nation's childhood is its mythical age.

Men seldom act from a correct sense of what may be harmful or useful to them.

That is why all great men are modest: they consistently measure themselves not in comparison to other people but to the idea of perfection ever present in their minds, an ideal infinitely clearer and greater than any common people have, and they also realize how far they are from fulfilling their ideal.

The artisan or scientist or the follower of whatever discipline who has the habit of comparing himself not with other followers but with the discipline itself will have a lower opinion of himself, the more excellent he is.

No human trait deserves less tolerance in everyday life, and gets less, than intolerance.