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

He who would confine his thought to present time will not understand present reality.

The indifference of men, far more than their tyranny, is the torment of women.

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

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.

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.

He who knows how to be poor knows everything.