In order to go on living one must try to escape the death involved in perfectionism.
An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger.
To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.
You can't blame gravity for falling in love.
Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
A coward is incapable of exhibiting love it is the prerogative of the brave.
To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace.
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.
Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.
What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.
Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.
Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay falsehood by haste and uncertainty.
Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
Content makes poor men rich discontent makes rich men poor.
Man's nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been know to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature.
The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.
To any artist, worthy of the name, all in nature is beautiful, because his eyes, fearlessly accepting all exterior truth, read there, as in an open book, all the inner truth.
Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defense can be just.
A war between Europeans is a civil war.
All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.
God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.
The superfluous, a very necessary thing.
The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.
The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil's alphabet - the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies.
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