A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.

There is an art, or rather a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.

Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.

It takes a great man to be a good listener.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope.

A friend to all is a friend to none

Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied.

In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.

Having a great intellect is no path to being happy.

I think, therefore I am.

Never pick a fight with an ugly person, they've got nothing to lose.

Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you are already a masterpiece. You cannot be improved. You have only to come to it, to know it, to realize it.

Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.

Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.

A mistake is always forgivable, rarely excusable and always unacceptable.

To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact

It is better to be looked over than overlooked.

Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.