Whatever we think out, whatever we take in hand to do, should be perfectly and finally finished, that the world, if it must alter, will only have to spoil it; we have then nothing to do but unite the severed, to recollect and restore the dismembered.

When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves.

If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.

There is no permanence in doubt; it incites the mind to closer inquiry and experiment, from which, if rightly managed, certainty proceeds, and in this alone can man find thorough satisfaction.

How can we learn self-knowledge? Never by taking thought but rather by action. Try to do your duty and you'll soon discover what you're like.

Of the truly creative no one is ever master; it must be left to go its own way.

It makes no good to point the failures out without showing at the same time the remedy to address them.