For having expressed an opinion, however far-fetched, we straightway become its slave, ready to die defending it, and even ready to believe it. And many continue to be martyrs to causes which have ceased to exist, their crowns rusting upon their heads as tin wreaths rust upon forgotten tombs.

Having read the inscriptions upon the tombstones of the great and little cemeteries, Wang Peng advised the Emperor to kill all the living and resurrect the dead.

We mourn the transitory things and fret under the yoke of the immutable ones.

There are those whose sole claim to profundity is the discovery of exceptions to the rules.

If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.

We hew and saw and plane facts to make them dovetail with our prejudices, so that they become mere ornaments with which to parade our objectivity.

With the stones we cast at them, geniuses build new roads with them.