Thus one can observe that those who proclaim piety as their goal and purpose usually turn into hypocrites.
Very few people love others for what they are; rather, they love what they lend them, their own selves, their own idea of them.
It is a maxim of wise government to treat people not as they should be but as they actually are.
If we are out of synch with ourselves, everything is out of synch for us.
All one needs to do is declare oneself free and one will immediately feel dependent. If you dare to declare yourself dependent, you feel independent.
The greatest step forward would be to see that everything factual is already theory. The blueness of the sky reveals the basic lawof chromatics. Don’t look for anything behind the phenomena, they themselves are the doctrine.
The errors of the observer come from the qualities of the human mind.
Fortunately, we can take in only so much misfortune; what exceeds that limit either destroys us or leaves us indifferent.
One is never satisfied with a portrait of persons whom one knows. That is why I have always pitied portraitists. One demands so seldom of others the impossible, but demands just that of the portraitists.
To be sure, we have inherited abilities, but our development we owe to thousands of influences coming from the world around us from which we appropriate what we can and what is suitable to us.
Our wishes are presentiments of the abilities that lie in us, harbingers of what we will be able to accomplish.
The most damaging prejudice consists of banning any kind of investigation of nature.
If one mistreats citizens of foreign countries, one infringes upon one’s duty toward one’s own subjects; for thus one exposes themto the law of retribution.
Stones are mute teachers; they silence the observer, and the most valuable lesson we learn from them we cannot communicate.
There are people who pay attention to the weaknesses of their friends; that is to no avail. I have always closely watched and profited from the strengths of my adversaries.
Paternity is based anyhow only upon conviction: I am convinced, therefore, I am the father.
One doesn’t always lose when one has to do without.
The new vulcanism is really a daring attempt to connect the present, incomprehensible world to a past, unknown one.
Several classical sayings that one likes to repeat had quite a different meaning from the ones later times attributed to them.
Only he who finds empiricism irksome is driven to method.