The egotist is all surface; underneath is a pulpy mess and a lot of self-doubt. But the egoist may be yielding and even deferential in things he doesn’t consider important; in anything that touches his core he is remorseless.
The dog is a yes-animal. Very popular with people who can’t afford a yes man.
Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them...
A great many complimentary things have been said about the faculty of memory, and if you look in a good quotation book you will find them neatly arranged.
Curiosity is part of the cement that holds society together.
Secrets are the blood of life. Every big thing is a secret, even when you know it, because you never know all of it. If you can know everything about anything, it is not worth knowing.
The quality of what is said inevitably influences the way in which it is said, however inexperienced the writer.
There is absolutely no point in sitting down to write a book unless you feel that you must write that book, or else go mad, or die.
Love affairs are for emotional sprinters; the pleasures of love are for the emotional marathoners.
What we call luck is the inner man externalized. We make things happen to us.
Never harbor grudges; they sour your stomach and do no harm to anyone else.
One learns one’s mystery at the price of one’s innocence.
Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog; fewer when pursued by a mad woman; only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion.
There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity.
To ask an author who hopes to be a serious writer if his work is autobiographical is like asking a spider where he buys his thread. The spider gets his thread right out of his own guts, and that is where the author gets his writing.
Imagination is a good horse to carry you over the ground – not a flying carpet to set you free from probability.
A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life.
The young are often accused of exaggerating their troubles; they do so, very often, in the hope of making some impression upon the inertia and the immovability of the selfish old.
No people in the world can make you feel so small as the English.
The problem for a Paracelsian physician like me is that I see diseases as disguises in which people present me with their wretchedness.