Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different.

At all times it has not been the age, but individuals alone, who have worked for knowledge. It was the age which put Socrates to death by poison, the age which burnt Huss. The ages have always remained alike.

You can’t, if you can’t feel it, if it never Rises from the soul, and sways The heart of every single hearer, With deepest power, in simple ways. You’ll sit forever, gluing things together, Cooking up a stew from other’s scraps, Blowing on a miserable fire, Made from your heap of dying ash. Let apes and children praise your art, If their admiration’s to your taste, But you’ll never speak from heart to heart, Unless it rises up from your heart’s space.

What people call the spirit of the times is mostly their own spirit in which the times mirror themselves.

I consider him of no account who esteems himself just as the popular breath may chance to raise him.

The confidant of my vices is my master, though he were my valet.

Wherever a man may happen to turn, whatever a man may undertake, he will always end up by returning to that path which nature has marked out for him.