It is horrible to see everything that one detested in the past coming back wearing the colors of the future.

Renown? I've already got more of it than those I respect, and will never have as much as those for whom I feel contempt.

The nobility of a human being is strictly independent of that of his convictions.

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.

One must either take an interest in the human situation or else parade before the void.

What makes our opponents useful is that they allow us to believe that without them we would be able to realize our goals.