A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command the latter.

The root of joy, as of duty, is to put all one's powers towards some great end.

We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible.

Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other.

Certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.

To be civilized is to be potentially master of all possible ideas, and that means that one has got beyond being shocked, although one preserves one's own moral aesthetic preferences.

Even the wisest woman you talk to is ignorant of something you may know, but an elegant woman never forgets her elegance.