My fate cannot be mastered; it can only be collaborated with and thereby, to some extent, directed. Nor am I the captain of my soul; I am only its noisiest passenger.

Somewhere in the rain, there will always be an abandoned dog that prevents you from being happy.

Specialized meaninglessness has come to be regarded, in certain circles, as a kind of hallmark of true science.

But then people don't read literature in order to understand; they read it because they want to re-live the feelings and sensations which they found exciting in the past. Art can be a lot of things; but in actual practice, most of it is merely the mental equivalent of alcohol and cantharides.

The proper study of mankind is books.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

It is only when we have renounced our preoccupation with "I," "me," "mine," that we can truly possess the world in which we live. Everything, provided that we regard nothing as property. And not only is everything ours; it is also everybody else's.