I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all, it is for you to dare all.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.

It is an amiable illusion, which the shape of our planet prompts, that every man is at the top of the world.