History is the autobiography of a madman.

What breadth, what beauty and power of human nature and development there must be in a woman to get over all the palisades, all the fences, within which she is held captive!

Life has taught me to think, but thinking has not taught me to live.

There is nothing in the world more stubborn than a corpse: you can hit it, you can knock it to pieces, but you cannot convince it.

To build a city where it is impossible to build a city is madness in itself, but to build there one of the most elegant and grandest of cities is the madness of genius.

It is possible to lead astray an entire generation, to strike it blind, to drive it insane, to direct it towards a false goal. Napoleon proved this.

The liberty of the individual is the greatest thing of all, it is on this and this alone that the true will of the people can develop.

The world will not know liberty until all that is religious and political is transformed into something simple and human and made susceptible to criticism and denial.

Science, which cuts its way through the muddy pond of daily life without mingling with it, casts its wealth to right and left, but the puny boatmen do not know how to fish for it.

Would it be possible to stand still on one spot more majestically -- while simulating a triumphant march forward -- than it is done by the two English Houses of Parliament?

Liberalism, austere in political trifles, has learned ever more artfully to unite a constant protest against the government with a constant submission to it.

Regret, albeit raw and relentless, is almost always unremarkable.

What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.

The guilt applies only to those things that are being given away for free.

Money is the kind of instrument which is very speedily produced.

The only thing that makes sense is if the universe is beautiful and simple and elegant.

If you have a dream, you can spend a lifetime studying, planning, and getting ready for it. What you should be doing is getting started.

The most important quality of art and its aim is illusion; emotion, which is often obtained by certain sacrifices of poetic detail, is something else entirely and of an inferior order.

Even a strong man can succumb to the wiles of a pretty girl with pointy shoes.

In the name of respecting the reality, keep the flatterers out of your life!

My skin burns where it meets his. It feels better than good, but it sets off a strange aching in my chest.