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Hatred, for the man who is not engaged in it, is a little like the odor of garlic for one who hasn't eaten any.
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One must either take an interest in the human situation or else parade before the void.
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The nobility of a human being is strictly independent of that of his convictions.
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There are moments when very little truth would be enough to shape opinion. One might be hated at extremely low cost.
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One kills a man, one is an assassin; one kills millions, one is a conqueror; one kills everybody, one is a god.
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In order to remain true to oneself one ought to renounce one's party three times a day.
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Renown? I've already got more of it than those I respect, and will never have as much as those for whom I feel contempt.
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Falsity cannot keep an idea from being beautiful; there are certain errors of such ingenuity that one could regret their not ranking among the achievements of the human mind.
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I should have no use for a paradise in which I should be deprived of the right to prefer hell.
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The least one can say of power is that a vocation for it is suspicious.
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In politics, yesterday's lie is attacked only to flatter today's.
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When a scientist is ahead of his times, it is often through misunderstanding of current, rather than intuition of future truth. In science there is never any error so gross that it won't one day, from some perspective, appear prophetic.
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To reflect is to disturb one's thoughts.
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Certain brief sentences are peerless in their ability to give one the feeling that nothing remains to be said.
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There are certain moments when we might wish the future were built by men of the past.
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Stupidity, outrage, vanity, cruelty, iniquity, bad faith, falsehood - we fail to see the whole array when it is facing in the same direction as we.
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It is not easy to imagine how little interested a scientist usually is in the work of any other, with the possible exception of the teacher who backs him or the student who honors him.
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Never feel remorse for what you have thought about your wife; she has thought much worse things about you.
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Truth is always served by great minds, even if they fight it.
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Beauty in art is often nothing but ugliness subdued.
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It takes a very deep-rooted opinion to survive unexpressed.
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The ideal, without doubt, varies, but its enemies, alas, are always the same.
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It is sometimes important for science to know how to forget the things she is surest of.
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My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of other pessimists.