When you talk with famous scholars, the best thing is to pretend that occasionally you do not quite understand them. If you understand too little, you will be despised; if you understand too much, you will be disliked; if you just fail occasionally to understand them, you will suit each other very well.

You have to reform yourself before reforming society and the world.

Trust only him who doubts.

It is in the nature of things that some people should be unlucky enough to get their heads chopped off.

True, we must dare look things in the face before we dare think, speak, act, or assume responsibility. If we dare not even look, what else are we good for?

Whoever thinks he is objective must already be half drunk.

But a people unable to reform will not be able to preserve its old culture either.