The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.
We should meet abuse by forbearance. Human nature is so constituted that if we take absolutely no notice of anger or abuse, the person indulging in it will soon weary of it and stop.
Nothing is so contagious as example and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like.
A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt dangerous.
The debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, seeming to be dragged rather than to march, to the intended goal. Something of this sort must, I think, always happen in public democratic assemblies.
It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
Nature, more of a stepmother than a mother in several ways, has sown a seed of evil in the hearts of mortals, especially in the more thoughtful men, which makes them dissatisfied with their own lot and envious of another s.
Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.
If I became a philosopher, if I have so keenly sought this fame for which I'm still waiting, it's all been to seduce women basically.
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
I love music passionately. And because I love it I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it.
Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness.
The idea that to make a man work you've got to hold gold in front of his eyes is a growth, not an axiom. We've done that for so long that we've forgotten there's any other way.
Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home.
How shall I be able to rule over others, that have not full power and command of myself?
Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth.
There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.
Martyrdom: The only way a man can become famous without ability.
Whence it follows that God is absolutely perfect, since perfection is nothing but magnitude of positive reality, in the strict sense, setting aside the limits or bounds in things which are limited.
Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.
It is vain for the coward to flee death follows close behind it is only by defying it that the brave escape.
All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price.
Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth.
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.
When undertaking marriage, everyone must be the judge of his own thoughts, and take counsel from himself.
And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on.
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