The past,' he thought, 'is linked with the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of another.' And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of that chain; that when he touched one end the other quivered.

Write only of what is important and eternal.

Humankind has understood history as a series of battles because, to this day, it regards conflict as the central facet of life.

Reason and justice tell me there's more love for humanity in electricity and steam than in chastity and vegetarianism.

He had two lives: one, open, seen and known by all who cared to know, full of relative truth and of relative falsehood, exactly like the lives of his friends and acquaintances; and another life running its course in secret. And through some strange, perhaps accidental, conjunction of circumstances, everything that was essential, of interest and of value to him, everything in which he was sincere and did not deceive himself, everything that made the kernel of his life, was hidden from other people.

It is depressing to hear the unfortunate or dying man jest.

A writer should not so much write as embroider on paper; the work should be painstaking, laborious.