It is not enough to take steps which may someday lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.

Look at a man the way he is and he only becomes worse, but look at him as if he were what he could be, then he becomes what he should be.

Theories are usually the over-hasty efforts of an impatient understanding that would gladly be rid of phenomena, and so puts in their place pictures, notions, nay, often mere words.

Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.

He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.

I could never have known so well how paltry men are, and how little they care for really high aims, if I had not tested them by my scientific researches. Thus I saw that most men only care for science so far as they get a living by it, and that they worship even error when it affords them a subsistence.

If the mass of people hesitate to act, strike with swiftly and with boldness, the brave heart that understands and seizes opportunity can everything.