Literature is the effort of man to indemnify himself for the wrongs of his condition.
Art aims at impressing feelings on us rather than expressing them;
I believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most grown men who are remarkable in this respect, may with greater propriety be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired it.
Love is merely a madness.
We do not do what we want and nonetheless we are responsible for what we are.
Beauty is mainly no more than simplicity.
Without the laughter, there would be no Tao.
I consider as lovers of books not those who keep their books hidden in their store-chests and never handle them, but those who, by nightly as well as daily use thumb them, batter them, wear them out, who fill out all the margins with annotations of many kinds, and who prefer the marks of a fault they have erased to a neat copy full of faults.
Man is a sociable, no less than a reasonable being.
It is one of the chief skills of the philosopher not to occupy himself with questions which do not concern him.
Live and let live.
The secret of success is constancy to purpose.
It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.
A scholar must be strong and resolute, for his burden is heavy, and his journey is long.
But, always ignorant of our own needs, We ask the heavens for what we need the least.
The mind is often at the heart that what the library of a castle is to the master's person.
Let a child play and mix instruction with play.
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
Happy the man who observes the heavenly and the terrestrial law in just proportion.
In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth.
Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.
What strength belongs to every plant and animal in nature. The tree or the brook has no duplicity, no pretentiousness, no show. It is, with all its might and main, what it is, and makes one and the same impression and effect at all times.
The poets and philosophers before me discovered the unconscious; what I discovered was the scientific method by which the unconscious can be studied:
To live is to be slowly born. It would be a bit too easy if we could go about borrowing ready-made souls.
Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself.
To make a virtue out of necessity; that is the beautiful and great work.
Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.
Nothing proceeds from itself. Nothing is given. All is constructed.
Obscurity is the realm of error.
It is pleasant to think of labours that are past.
Find quotes in french, in german, or in latin. Click on the translation icon.
