People often become scholars for the same reason they become soldiers: simply because they are unfit for any other station. Their right hand has to earn them a livelihood; one might say they lie down like bears in winter and seek sustenance from their paws.

A handful of soldiers is always better than a mouthful of arguments.

Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.

It is said that truth comes from the mouths of fools and children: I wish every good mind which feels an inclination for satire would reflect that the finest satirist always has something of both in him.

Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has free will.

The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.

To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite.

What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesses reflected back from others.

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

With prophecies the commentator is often a more important man than the prophet.