“I am not ashamed to confess I am ignorant of what I do not know.”

“If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.”

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?”

“I criticize by creation, not by finding fault.”

“What one has, one ought to use; and whatever he does, he should do with all his might.”

“Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to be always a child. If no use is made of the labours of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge.”

“Hours and days and months and years go by; the past returns no more, and what is to be we cannot know; but whatever the time gives us in which we live, we should therefore be content.”