“A vacuum of ideas affects people differently than a vacuum of air, otherwise readers of books would be constantly collapsing”
53 quotes in our collection
“A vacuum of ideas affects people differently than a vacuum of air, otherwise readers of books would be constantly collapsing”
“Man loves company even if it is only that of a small burning candle”
“The worst thing you can possibly do is worrying and thinking about what you could have done”
“The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth”
“A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on”
“Most men of education are more superstitious than they admit - nay, than they think”
“Much can be inferred about a man from his mistress: in her one beholds his weaknesses and his dreams”
“Theologians always try to turn the Bible into a book without common sense”
“Ambition and suspicion always go together”
“We cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature, it is always ourselves alone we are observing”
“Just as we outgrow a pair of trousers, we outgrow acquaintances, libraries, principles, etc., at times before they're worn out and times - and this is the worst of all - before we have new ones”
“Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age”
“Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much”
“Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.”
“Reason now gazes above the realm of the dark but warm feelings as the alpine peaks do above the clouds. They behold the sun more clearly and distinctly, but they are cold and unfruitful”
“What is the good of drawing conclusions from experience? I don't deny we sometimes draw the right conclusions, but don't we just as often draw the wrong ones?”
“Probably no invention came more easily to man than heaven”
“What most clearly characterizes true freedom and its true employment is its misemployment”
“Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum”
“First there is a time when we believe everything, then for a little while we believe with discrimination, then we believe nothing whatever, and then we believe everything again - and, moreover, give reasons why we believe”