As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.
With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.
Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.
The greatest achievements of the human mind are generally received with distrust.
A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.
Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first.
Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity.
The longer a man’s fame is likely to last, the longer it will be in coming.
Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.
Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.
If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.
We seldom think of what we have but always of what we lack. Therefore, rather than grateful, we are bitter.
Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.
