Those that are firm in their will mold the world to themselves.

The history of knowledge is a great fugue in which the voices of the nations one after the other emerge.

When the boy begins to understand that the visible point is preceded by an invisible point, that the shortest distance between two points is conceived as a straight line before it is ever drawn with pencil and paper...the fountain of all thought has been opened to him...the philosopher can reveal him nothing new, as a geometrician he has discovered the basis of all thought.

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.

A vain man can never be altogether rude. Desirous as he is of pleasing, he fashions his manners after those of others.

The spectacle of Nature is always new, for she is always renewing the spectators. Life is her most exquisite invention; and death is her expert contrivance to get plenty of life.

People do not mind their faults being spread out before them, but they become impatient if called on to give them up.