One cannot demand of a scholar that he show himself a scholar everywhere in society, but the whole tenor of his behavior must none the less betray the thinker, he must always be instructive, his way of judging a thing must even in the smallest matters be such that people can see what it will amount to when, quietly and self-collected, he puts this power to scholarly use.
The celebrated painter Gainsborough got as much pleasure from seeing violins as from hearing them.
Here take back the stuff that I am, nature, knead it back into the dough of being, make of me a bush, a cloud, whatever you will, even a man, only no longer make me.
To err is human also in so far as animals seldom or never err, or at least only the cleverest of them do so.
If an angel were to tell us about his philosophy, I believe many of his statements might well sound like '2 x 2= 13'.
He was always smoothing and polishing himself, and in the end he became blunt before he was sharp.
If we thought more for ourselves we would have very many more bad books and very many more good ones.
Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it.
What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears...as easily as we open and shut our eyes.
He swallowed a lot of wisdom, but all of it seems to have gone down the wrong way.
So-called professional mathematicians have, in their reliance on the relative incapacity of the rest of mankind, acquired for themselves a reputation for profundity very similar to the reputation for sanctity possessed by theologians.
It is too bad if you have to do everything upon reflection and can't do anything from early habit.
Cautiousness in judgment is nowadays to be recommended to each and every one: if we gained only one incontestable truth every ten years from each of our philosophical writers the harvest we reaped would be sufficient.
He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage - he won't encounter many rivals.
In each of us there is a little of all of us.
Man is a masterpiece of creation, if only because no amount of determinism can prevent him from believing that he acts as a free being.
A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.
Affectation is a very good word when someone does not wish to confess to what he would none the less like to believe of himself.
He marvelled at the fact that the cats had two holes cut in their fur at precisely the spot where their eyes were.
Perhaps pure reason without heart would never have thought of God.
To make astute people believe one is what one is not is, in most cases, harder than actually to become what one wishes to appear.
If there were only turnips and potatoes in the world, someone would complain that plants grow the wrong way.
Some people come by the name of genius in the same way that certain insects come by the name of centipede -- not because they have a hundred feet, but because most people can't count above 14.
One of our forefathers must have read a forbidden book.
Reason now gazes above the realm of the dark but warm feelings as the Alpine peaks do above the clouds. They behold the sun more clearly and distinctly, but they are cold and unfruitful.
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