It is the same with mathematics, which would certainly not have arisen if it had been known from the beginning that in Nature there are no exactly straight lines, no real circle, no absolute standard of size.
It is the privilege of greatness to confer intense happiness with insignificant gifts.
It is not the struggle of opinions that has made history so turbulent; but the struggle of belief in opinions.
Iron necessity is a thing which has been found, in the course of history, to be neither iron nor necessary.
In order to escape ennui, a man either works beyond the extent of his former necessities, or he invents play, that is to say, work that is only intended to appeas the general necessity for work.
He who cannot put his thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of dispute.
He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.
Gentlewomen think that a thing does not really exist when it is not possible to talk of it in society.
Every nation, every individual, has unpleasant and even dangerous qualities.
Christianity arose for the purpose of lightening the heart; but now it must first make the heart heavy in order afterwards to lighten it. Consequently it will perish.
Art raises its head where creeds relax.
And life, in spite of ourselves, is not devised by morality.
