The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say - because they were too obvious.

Man! The most complex of creatures, and for this reason the most dependant of creatures. On everything that has formed you, you may depend. Do not balk at this apparent slavery....a debtor to many, you pay for your advantages by the same number of dependencies. Understand that independence is a form of poverty; that many things claim you, that many also claim kinship with you.

It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written.

Humanity cherishes its swaddling clothes; but it shall not grow up unless it can free itself from them. Turning down his mother's breast does not make the weaned child ungrateful. ... Rise up naked, valiant; make the sheaths crack; push aside the stakes; to grow straight you need no more than the thrust of your sap and the call of the sun.

Nothing is so silly as the expression of a man who is being complimented.

Drunkenness is never anything but a substitute for happiness.

Oh, would that my mind could let fall its dead ideas, as the tree does its withered leaves!