Not all that is presented to us as history has really happened; and what really happened did not actually happen the way it is presented to us; moreover, what really happened is only a small part of all that happened. Everything in history remains uncertain, the largest events as well as the smallest occurrence.

A good man, through obscurest aspirations Has still an instinct of the one true way.

Sound and sufficient reason falls, after all, to the share of but few men, and those few men exert their influence in silence.

We are pantheists as natural scientists, polytheists as poets, and monotheists as moral beings.

Life teaches us to be less harsh with ourselves and with others.

War is in truth a disease in which the juices that serve health and maintenance are used for the sole purpose of nourishing something foreign, something at odds with nature.

Everything in science depends on what one calls an aperçu, on becoming aware of what is at the bottom of the phenomena. Such becoming aware is infinitely fertile.