My mother loved children -- she would have given anything if I had been one.
His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even... knowledge, was foolproof.
It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
A joke's a very serious thing.
A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary.
Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.