First, anyone who seriously intends to become a philosopher must "once in his life" withdraw into himself and attempt, within himself, to overthrow and build anew all the sciences that, up to then, he has been accepting.
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.
What I propose, therefore, is very simple: it is nothing more than to think what we are doing.
All the arts are like mirrors in which the human beings know and recognize something of themselves they ignored.
Self-trust is the first secret of success.
Plurality is never to be posited without necessity.
Truly there is no wise man. Who does not know the dark.
Truth was the only daughter of Time.
The art, my children, it is to be absolutely oneself.
Some reasonings are stronger than we are.
At the heart of my revolt lay consent.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
Character is the virtue of hard times.
Necessity delivers us from the embarrassment of choice.
Where nature is lacking, work supplies.
Man is nothing else than his plan; he exists only to the extent that he fulfills himself; he is therefore nothing else than the ensemble of his acts, nothing less than his life.
Every man I meet is in some way my superior; and in that I can learn of him.
Time softens everything.
Do not wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day.
Like great works, deep feelings always mean more than they are conscious of saying.
In a world of peace and love, music would be the universal language.
The dream is stronger than experience.
The poem: a prolonged hesitation between sound and sense.
Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.
A hundred motives compel me to be always in love.
We seldom think of what we have, but always of what we lack.
Never do anything which you do not understand. But learn all you ought to know, and by that means you will lead a very pleasant life.
This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined.
Within the given world, it is up to man to make the reign of freedom prevail; to carry off this supreme victory, men and women must, among other things and above and beyond their natural differentiations, affirm their brotherhood unequivocally.
Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.
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