Jean d'Alembert

"The pursuit of knowledge is the noblest of all human endeavors."

"Death gives meaning to life; without it, all pursuits are hollow."

"Wisdom is knowing what not to do as much as what to do."

"Humor is the recognition of life's absurdities."

"Inspiration is ninety percent perspiration and ten percent insight."

"Politics should be the art of compromise, not the art of victory."

"The formula of the Trinity is the most incomprehensible of all religious dogmas."

"I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker."

"The greatest truths are the simplest things in the world, simple as your own breath."

"One must be very prudent in one's judgments of others."

"The sciences have been greatly improved and corrected; but I am not sure they have become better."

"Music is the quickest language for expressing our inmost feelings and thoughts."

"A man is not learned because he talks much; he is learned when he speaks with purpose and wisdom."

"The study of mathematics is like climbing a mountain; the higher you go, the smaller you appear to those below."

"We honor the dead not by mourning them, but by preserving their wisdom."

"The true measure of a man is not in what he possesses, but in what he refuses to possess."

"Ideas are the seeds from which all progress grows."

"Freedom without responsibility is merely license."

"The mind that opens to a new idea never returns to its original dimensions."

"Art imitates life, but only good art reveals what life truly means."

"To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the need for reflection."

"The greatest discoveries are often made by accident."

"War is the infancy of nations, peace their maturity."

"The strength of a nation lies not in its armies, but in its thinkers."

"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives."

"Patience is the art of hoping."

"Money, like virtue, is its own reward."

"The greatest freedom is the freedom to think."

"Time is the canvas on which we paint our lives."

"Beauty is truth, and truth is beauty in the realm of nature."