Quote collection
571 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"That the outer man is a picture of the inner, and the face an expression and revelation of the whole character, is a presumption likely enough in itself, and therefore a safe one to go on; borne out as it is by the fact that people are always anxious to see anyone who has made himself famous. Photography offers the most complete satisfaction of our curiosity."
"A book can never be anything more than the impression of its author’s thoughts. The value of these thoughts lies either in the matter about which he has thought, or in the form in which he develops his matter — that is to say, what he has thought about it."
"Every original idea is first ridiculed, then vigorously attacked, and finally taken for granted."
"Monotheistic religions alone furnish the spectacle of religious wars, religious persecutions, heretical tribunals, that breaking of idols and destruction of images of the gods, that razing of Indian temples and Egyptian colossi, which had looked on the sun 3,000 years: just because a jealous god had said, Thou shalt make no graven image."
"Genuine contempt, on the other hand, is the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another."
"Men of learning are those who have read the contents of books. Thinkers, geniuses, and those who have enlightened the world and furthered the race of men, are those who have made direct use of the book of the world."
"The little honesty that exists among authors is discernible in the unconscionable way they misquote from the writings of others."
"In reading, the mind is, in fact, only the playground of another's thoughts."
"You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing."
"Where there is no love, a person's faithfulness to the marriage bond is probably against nature."
"Reading is a mere makeshift for original thinking."
"The intellectual attainments of a man who thinks for himself resemble a fine painting, where the light and shade are correct, the tone sustained, the colour perfectly harmonised; it is true to life. On the other hand, the intellectual attainments of the mere man of learning are like a large palette, full of all sorts of colours, which at most are systematically arranged, but devoid of harmony, connection and meaning."
"The progress of life shows a man the stuff of which he is made."
"Of all the intellectual faculties, judgment is the last to mature. A child under the age of fifteen should confine its attention either to subjects like mathematics, in which errors of judgment are impossible, or to subjects in which they are not very dangerous, like languages, natural science, history, etc."
"There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the subject's sake, and those who write for writing's sake."
"In many cases hate a person is rooted in the involuntary estimate of its virtues."
"A word too much always defeats its purpose."
"That I could clamber to the frozen moon. And draw the ladder after me."
"The conviction that the world and man is something that had better not have been, is of a kind to fill us with indulgence towards one another."
"Philosophy ... is a science, and as such has no articles of faith; accordingly, in it nothing can be assumed as existing except what is either positively given empirically, or demonstrated through indubitable conclusions."