Faith is certitude without proofs ... Faith is a sentiment, for it is a hope; it is an instinct, for it precedes all outward instruction.

The laws of animality govern almost the whole of history.

Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.

[T]he habit of scientific analysis ... exhausts the material offered to it.

Everything which is, is thought, but not conscious and individual thought. The human intelligence is but the consciousness of being. It is what I have formulated before: Everything is a symbol of a symbol, and a symbol of what? Of mind.

Before giving advice we must have secured its acceptance, or, rather, have made it desired.

I have never felt any inward assurance of genius, or any presentiment of glory or of happiness. I have never seen myself in imagination great or famous, or even a husband, a father, an influential citizen. This indifference to the future, this absolute self-distrust, are, no doubt, to be taken as signs. What dreams I have are all vague and indefinite; I ought not to live, for I am now scarcely capable of living.