Love of truth shows itself in this, that a man knows how to find and value the good in everything.
The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that they forfeit their originality in recognizing a truth which has already been recognized by others.
It is not always needful for truth to take a definite shape; it is enough if it hovers about us like a spirit and produces harmony; if it is wafted through the air like the sound of a bell, grave and kindly.
It is as certain as it is strange that truth and error come from one and the same source. Thus it is that we are often not at liberty to do violence to error, because at the same time we do violence to truth.
A man avails himself of the truth so long as it is serviceable; but he seizes on what is false with a passionate eloquence as soon as he can make a momentary use of it.
The written word has this advantage, that it lasts and can await the time when it is allowed to take effect.
If the word is not dead when it reaches the hearer, he murders it at once by a contradiction, a stipulation, a condition, a digression, an interruption, and all the thousand tricks of conversation.
Superstition is a part of the very being of humanity; and when we fancy that we are banishing it altogether, it takes refuge in the strangest nooks and corners, and then suddenly comes forth again, as soon as it believes itself at all safe.
The world of reason is to be regarded as a great and immortal being, who ceaselessly works out what is necessary, and so makes himself lord also over what is accidental.
Tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you who you are.
It is a very hard and troublesome thing to dispose of whole, half, and quarter-mistakes; to sift them and assign the portion of truth to its proper place.
To venture an opinion is like moving a piece at chess: it may be taken, but it forms the beginning of a game that is won.
I come more and more to the conclusion that one must take the side of the minority which is always the more intelligent one.
He who is wise puts aside all claims which may dissipate his attention, and confining himself to one branch excels in that.
Deny yourself! You must deny yourself! That is the song that never ends.
All our knowledge is symbolic.
We can stand only a certain amount of unhappiness; anything beyond that annihilates us or passes us by, leaving us apathethetic.
The world only goes forward because of those who oppose it.
The thinking person has the strange characteristic to like to create a fantasy in the place of the unsolved problem, a fantasy that stays with the person even when the problem has been solved and truth made its appearance.
The true, prescriptive artist strives after artistic truth; the lawless artist, following blind instinct, after an appearance of naturalness. The one leads to the highest peaks of art, the other to its lowest depths.