That whatever a man says, promises, or resolves in passion he must stick to later on when he is cold and sober--this demand is among the heaviest burdens that weigh on humankind.
The Greeks, with their truly healthy culture, have once and for all justified philosophy simply by having engaged in it, and having engaged in it more fully than any other people.
Every man who has declared that some other man is an ass or a scoundrel, gets angry when the other man conclusively shows that the assertion was erroneous.
My conception of freedom. — The value of a thing sometimes does not lie in that which one attains by it, but in what one pays for it — what it costs us. Liberal institutions cease to be liberal as soon as they are attained: later on, there are no worse and no more thorough injurers of freedom than liberal institutions.
Knowing things halfway is a greater success than knowing things completely: it takes things to be simpler than they really are andso makes its opinions more easily understandable and persuasive.