“I picture the vast realm of the sciences as an immense landscape scattered with patches of dark and light. The goal towards which we must work is either to extend the boundaries of the patches of light, or to increase their number. One of these tasks falls to the creative genius; the other requires a sort of sagacity combined with perfectionism.”

“If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can't deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.”

“Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”

“There are things I can't force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint.”

“When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music.”

“Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.”

“Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad. ”

“You have to make it happen.”

“Although a man may wear fine clothing, if he lives peacefully; and is good, self-possessed, has faith and is pure; and if he does not hurt any living being, he is a holy man.”

“Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.”

“Only passions, great passions can elevate the soul to great things.”