Here below is not the land of happiness: I know it now it is only the land of toil, and every joy which comes to us is only to strengthen us for some greater labor that is to succeed.

By philosophy the mind of man comes to itself, and from henceforth rests on itself without foreign aid, and is completely master of itself, as the dancer of his feet, or the boxer of his hands.

There are two great classes of men: the people and the scholars, the men of science. For the former, nothing exists but that which directly leads to action. It is for the latter to see beyond. They are the free artists who create the future and its history, the conscious architects of the world.

I know what I can know, and am not troubled about what I cannot know.

The schools must fashion the person, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will.

This Being out of God cannot, by any means, be a limited, completed, and inert Being, since God himself is not such a dead Being, but, on the contrary, is Life but it can only be a Power, since only a Power is the true formal picture or Schema of Life. And indeed it can only be the Power of realising that which is contained in itself a Schema.

What sort of philosophy one chooses depends on what sort of person one is.

We do not act because we know, but we know because we are called upon to act the practical reason is the root of all reason.

The person who doubts there is an external world does not need proof: he needs a cure.

He who is firm in will molds the world to himself.

To those who do not love God, all things must work together immediately for pain and torment, until, by means of the tribulation, they are led to salvation at last.

Humanity may endure the loss of everything all its possessions may be turned away without infringing its true dignity - all but the possibility of improvement.