A blaspheming Frenchman is a spectacle more pleasing to the Lord than a praying Englishman.

In dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in a pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide; he knows the roads and paths better than a man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind, old men as guides.

From every Englishman emanates a kind of gas, the deadly choke-damp of boredom.

All our contemporary philosophers perhaps without knowing it are looking through eyeglasses that Baruch Spinoza polished. Spinoza was a philosopher who earned his livelihood by grinding lenses.

First, I thought, almost despairing, This must crush my spirit now; Yet I bore it, and am bearing- Only do not ask me how.

The foolish race of mankind are swarming below in the night; they shriek and rage and quarrel - and all of them are right.

Lyrical poetry is much the same an every age, as the songs of the nightingales in every spring-time.