“A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.”

“In his Comedy, Dante Alighieri names Virgil, with many tokens of respect, as his teacher, and yet as Herr Meinhard remarks, makes such ill use of him: clear proof that even in the days of Dante one praised the ancients without knowing why. This respect for poets one does not understand and yet wishes to equal is the source of the bad writing in our literature.”

“What I do not like about our definitions of genius is that there is in them nothing of the day of judgment, nothing of resounding through eternity and nothing of the footsteps of the Almighty.”

“Nothing is more conductive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.”

“Don't judge a man by his opinions, but what his opinions have made of him.”

“I am confident of my ability to demonstrate that one can sometimes believe in something and yet not believe in it. Nothing is less fathomable than the systems that motivate our actions.”

“Every condition of the soul has its own sign and expression...So you will see how hard it is to seem original without being so.”