Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see.

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.

We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.

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.

Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.

It is only a man's own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else's meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.