After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.

A letter is an unannounced visit, the postman the agent of rude surprises. One ought to reserve an hour a week for receiving letters and afterwards take a bath.

The more abstract the truth you want to teach, the more thoroughly you must seduce the senses to accept it.

A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy.

Even today a crude sort of persecution is all that is required to create an honorable name for any sect, no matter how indifferent in itself.

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

The strongest knowledge (that of the total freedom of the human will) is nonetheless the poorest in successes: for it always has the strongest opponent, human vanity.

I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.

The growth of wisdom may be gauged exactly by the diminution of ill temper.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.