A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us worthy of using it.

It is not easy to imagine how little interested a scientist usually is in the work of any other, with the possible exception of the teacher who backs him or the student who honors him.

Beauty in art is often nothing but ugliness subdued.

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

We bestow on others praise in which we do not believe, on condition that in return they bestow upon us praise in which we do.

To say of men that they are bad is to say they are worse than we think we are, or worse than the ideal man whose image we have built up on the basis of a certain few.

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