I should like to meet a philosopher like Nietzsche somewhere in a train or a steamer, and to spend the whole night talking to him. I consider his philosophy won't last long, however. It's more showy than convincing.

The government is not God. It does not have the right to take away that which it can't return even if it wants to.

In descriptions of Nature one must seize on small details, grouping them so that when the reader closes his eyes he gets a picture. For instance, you'll have a moonlit night if you write that on the mill dam a piece of glass from a broken bottle glittered like a bright little star, and that the black shadow of a dog or a wolf rolled past like a ball.

It's easier to write about Socrates than about a young woman or a cook.

A good upbringing means not that you won't spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you won't notice it when someone else does.

To describe drunkenness for the colorful vocabulary is rather cynical. There is nothing easier than to capitalize on drunkards.

Write, write, write-till your fingers break.