An opinion, though it is original, does not necessarily differ from the accepted opinion; the important thing is that it does not try to conform to it.
It is not becoming to lay to virtue the weariness of old age.
How do you know that the fruit is ripe? Simply because it leaves the branch.
It is only through restraint that man can manage not to suppress himself.
Generally among intelligent people are found nothing but paralytics and among men of action nothing but fools.
The individual man tries to escape the race. And as soon as he ceases to represent the race, he represents man.
The individual person is more interesting than people in general; he and not they is the one whom God created in His image.
Woe to these people who have no appetite for the very dish that their age serves up.
The work of art is the exaggeration of an idea.
The thing I am most aware of is my limits. And this is natural; for I never, or almost never, occupy the middle of my cage; my whole being surges toward the bars.
To be sure, theory is useful. But without warmth of heart and without love it bruises the very ones it claims to save.
To love the truth is to refuse to let oneself be saddened by it.
Profound optimism is always on the side of the tortured.
Envying another man’s happiness is madness; you wouldn’t know what to do with it if you had it.
I do not love men: I love what devours them.
Please do not understand me too quickly.
The loveliest creations of men are persistently painful. What would be the description of happiness?
You have to let other people be right’ was his answer to their insults. ‘It consoles them for not being anything else.
The most decisive actions of our life – I mean those that are most likely to decide the whole course of our future – are, more often than not, unconsidered.
I am lost if I attempt to take count of chronology. When I think over the past, I am like a person whose eyes cannot properly measure distances and is liable to think things extremely remote which on examination prove to be quite near.