The surest way of concealing from others the boundaries of one s own knowledge is not to overstep them.

True misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world: because it is practical experience of the world and not philosophy that makes men hate.

Nature, with her customary beneficence, has ordained that man shall not learn how to live until the reasons for living are stolen from him, that he shall find no enjoyment until he has become incapable of vivid pleasure.

The artisan or scientist or the follower of whatever discipline who has the habit of comparing himself not with other followers but with the discipline itself will have a lower opinion of himself, the more excellent he is.

If the best company is that which we leave feeling most satisfied with ourselves, it follows that it is the company we leave most bored.

Men are ready to suffer anything from others or from heaven itself, provided that, when it comes to words, they are untouched.

The old man, especially if he is in society in the privacy of his thoughts, though he may protest the opposite, never stops believing that, through some singular exception of the universal rule, he can in some unknown and inexplicable way still make an impression on women.

The greater part of the people we assign to educate our sons we know for certain are not educated. Yet we do not doubt that they can give what they have not received, a thing which cannot be otherwise acquired.

Every man remembers his childhood as a kind of mythical age, just as every nation's childhood is its mythical age.

The most certain way to hide from others the limits of our knowledge is not to go beyond them.