Not one of our mortal gauges is suitable for evaluating non-existence, for making judgments about that which is not a person.

I feel more confident and more satisfied when I reflect that I have two professions and not one. Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress. When I get tired of one I spend the night with the other. Though it's disorderly it's not so dull, and besides, neither really loses anything, through my infidelity.

One must be a god to be able to tell successes from failures without making a mistake.

Your talent sets you apart: if you were a toad or a tarantula, even then, people would respect you, for to talent all things are forgiven.

You only have to start a job of work to realize how few decent, honest folk there are about.

To harbor spiteful feelings against ordinary people for not being heroes is possible only for narrow-minded or embittered man.

Write only of what is important and eternal.