Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.


In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited.


Men of learning are those who have read the contents of books. Thinkers, geniuses, and those who have enlightened the world and furthered the race of men, are those who have made direct use of the book of the world.


It is the courage to make a clean breast of it in the face of every question that makes the philosopher. 


We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.


Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.


Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.


This actual world of what is knowable, in which we are and which is in us, remains both the material and the limit of our consideration.


No doubt, when modesty was made a virtue, it was a very advantageous thing for the fools, for everybody is expected to speak of himself as if he were one.


Christianity taught only what the whole of Asia knew already long before and even better.


The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence.


Reason is feminine in nature; it can only give after it has received. Of itself it has nothing but the empty forms of its operation.


All religions promise a reward for excellences of the will or heart, but none for excellences of the head or understanding.


Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost.


The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.


Truth that is naked is the most beautiful, and the simpler its expression the deeper is the impression it makes