The real, in all this efforts, is that we climb just for climbing.

How beautifully everything is arranged by Nature; as soon as a child enters the world, it finds a mother ready to take care of it.

The historian's first duties are sacrilege and the mocking of false gods. They are his indispensable instruments for establishing the truth.

What manly eloquence could produce such an effect as woman's silence?

Woe be to him who tries to isolate one department of knowledge from the rest. All science is one: language, literature and history, physics, mathematics and philosophy; subjects which seem the most remote from one another are in reality connected, or rather they all form a single system.

Improvement depends far less upon length of tasks and hours of application than is supposed. Children can take in but a little each day; they are like vases with a narrow neck; you may pour little or pour much, but much will not enter at a time.

Our esteem is apt to be given where we know the least.