We spend our time envying people whom we wouldn't wish to be.

We find it easy to believe that praise is sincere: why should anyone lie in telling us the truth?

Falsity cannot keep an idea from being beautiful; there are certain errors of such ingenuity that one could regret their not ranking among the achievements of the human mind.

I still understand a few words in life, but I no longer think they make a sentence.

A body of work such as Pasteur's is inconceivable in our time: no man would be given a chance to create a whole science. Nowadays a path is scarcely opened up when the crowd begins to pour in.

There are certain moments when we might wish the future were built by men of the past.

Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men.