An error actively advocated is healthier than a truth lazily accepted. Thought becomes fecund only in action.
A mistake is sooner corrected than a falsehood, because it is nobody’s interest to maintain it.
Novel-reading is the fashionable narcotic; opium, chloral, and hasheesh together count fewer victims.
All that is, is a prophecy of what will be; hence, to a philosopher, the chief interest in things is their symbolical value.
Vivre caché, c’est vivre heureux. This was Descartes’ motto. It should be translated: “To be able to retire with pleasure to your own thoughts, is to be happy.”