If we seek to keep the past alive, we end, I think, by distorting it.

Words, mademoiselle, are only the outer clothing of ideas.

I didn't want to work. It was as simple as that. I distrusted work, disliked it. I thought it was a very bad thing that the human race had unfortunately invented for itself.

I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming that comes when you finish the life of the emotions and of personal relations; and suddenly find - at the age of fifty, say - that a whole new life has opened before you, filled with things you can think about, study, or read about...It is as if a fresh sap of ideas and thoughts was rising in you.

Too much mercy... often resulted in further crimes which were fatal to innocent victims who need not have been victims if justice had been put first and mercy second.

I can think of nothing more soul destroying in life than to persist in trying to do a thing you want desperately to do well, and to know that you are at the best second rate.

I have always admired the Esquimaux (Eskimos). One fine day a delicious meal is cooked for dear old mother, and then she goes walking away over the ice, and doesn't come back.