The majority of the books of our time give one the impression of having been manufactured in a day out of books read the day before.

Celebrity is the advantage of being known to people who we don't know, and who don't know us.

What we love intensely or for a long time we are likely to bring within the citadel, and to assert as part of oneself.

Most benefactors are like unskillful generals who take the city and leave the citadel intact.

One must not hope to be more than one can be.

What one knows best is ... what one has learned not from books but as a result of books, through the reflections to which they have given rise.

Egotism is the tongue of vanity.