The artist produces for the liberation of his soul.

Art, unless it leads to right action, is no more than the opium of an intelligentsia.

The mathematician who after seeing Phedre asked: 'Qu'est que ca prouve?' was not such a fool as he has been generally made out. No one has ever been able to explain why the Doric temple of Paestum is more beautiful than a glass of cold beer except by bringing in considerations that have nothing to do with beauty.

When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch's statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty to learn Greek. I am amazed no longer. Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.

Most people are such fools that it is really no great compliment to say that someone is above the average.

The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.

It must be that to govern a nation you need a specific talent and that this may very well exist without general ability.