There are two great classes of men: the people and the scholars, the men of science. For the former, nothing exists but that which directly leads to action. It is for the latter to see beyond. They are the free artists who create the future and its history, the conscious architects of the world.

What sort of philosophy one chooses depends, therefore, on what sort of man one is; for a philosophical system is not a dead piece of furniture that we can reject or accept as we wish; it is rather a thing animated by the soul of the person who holds it.

Humanity may endure the loss of everything; all its possessions may be turned away without infringing its true dignity - all but the possibility of improvement.

He who is firm in will molds the world to himself.

Nothing is more destructive of individual character than for a man to lose all faith in his own abilities for the prosecution of his work.

I know what I can know, and am not troubled about what I cannot know.

By mere burial man arrives not at bliss; and in the future life, throughout its whole infinite range, they will seek for happiness as vainly as they sought it here, who seek it in aught else than that which so closely surrounds them here - the Infinite