“If one divided all of human science into two parts - the one common to all men, the other particular to the learned - the latter would be quite small in comparison with the former. But we are hardly aware of what is generally attained, because it is attained without thought and even before the age of reason; because, moreover, learning is noticed only by its differences, and as in algebraic equations, common quantities count for nothing.”

“Only two kinds of people can attain self-knowledge: those who are not encumbered at all with learning, that is to say, whose minds are not over-crowded with thoughts borrowed from others; and those who, after studying all the scriptures and sciences, have come to realise that they know nothing.”

“When men cannot communicate their thoughts to each other, simply because of difference of language, all the similarity of their common human nature is of no avail to unite them in fellowship.”

“All rational knowledge is either material, and concerns some objects, or formal, and is occupied only with the form of understanding and reason itself and with the universal rules of thinking, without regard to distinctions among objects. formal philosophy is called logic. Material philosophy, however, which has to do with definite object objects and the laws to which they are subject, is divided into two parts. This is because these laws are either laws of nature or laws of freedom. The science of the former is called physics, and that of the latter ethics. The former is also called theory of nature and the latter theory of morals.”

“The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.”

“There are two ways of persuading men of the truths of our religion; one by the power of reason, the other by the authority of the speaker.We do not use the latter but the former. We do not say: 'You must believe that because Scripture, which says it, is divine,' but we say that it must be believed for such and such a reason. But these are feeble arguments, because reason can be bent in any direction.”