It is not the mediocrity of women's education which makes their weakness; it is their weakness which necessarily causes their mediocrity.

The concept of number is the obvious distinction between the beast and man. Thanks to number, the cry becomes a song, noise acquires rhythm, the spring is transformed into a dance, force becomes dynamic, and outlines figures.

In the whole vast dome of living nature there reigns an open violence, a kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their common doom: as soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom you find the decree of violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life.

In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve.

To know how to wait. It is the great secret of success.

It can even come about that a created will cancels out, not perhaps the exertion, but the result of divine action; for in this sense, God himself has told us that God wishes things which do not happen because man does not wish them! Thus the rights of men are immense, and his greatest misfortune is to be unaware of them.

There is no easy method of learning difficult things. The method is to close the door, give out that you are not at home, and work.