We should know mankind better if we were not so anxious to resemble one another.

It is always a sign of an unproductive time when it concerns itself with petty and technical aspects [in philology], and likewiseit is a sign of an unproductive person to pursue such trifles.

Let us seek to fathom those things that are fathomable and reserve those things which are unfathomable for reverence in quietude.

He who has a task to perform must know how to take sides, or he is quite unworthy of it.

And I have again observed, my dear friend, in this trifling affair, that misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. At all events, the two latter are of less frequent occurrence.

Alas, I have studied philosophy, the law as well as medicine, and to my sorrow, theology; studied them well with ardent zeal, yet here I am, a wretched fool, no wiser than I was before.

Science has been seriously retarded by the study of what is not worth knowing and of what is not knowable.