There is no idea that does not carry in itself a possible refutation, no word that does not imply its opposite.

Medicine being a compendium of the successive and contradictory mistakes of medical practitioners, when we summon the wisest of them to our aid, the chances are that we may be relying on a scientific truth the error of which will be recognized in a few years time.

A sort of egotistical self-evaluation is unavoidable in those joys in which erudition and art mingle and in which aesthetic pleasure may become more acute, but not remain as pure.

It is the tragedy of other people that they are to us merely showcases for the very perishable collections of our own mind.

Reading is at the threshold of spiritual life; it can introduce us to it; it does not constitute it. There are, however, certain cases, certain pathological cases, so to speak, of spiritual depression in which reading can become a sort of curative discipline and assume the task, through repeated stimulation, of continuously reintroducing a lazy mind into the life of the spirit.

Just as those who practice the same profession recognize each other instinctively, so do those who practice the same vice.

I believe that all true art is classic, but the dictates of the mind rarely permit of its being recognized as such when it first appears.