I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the duncoloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material?

There is nothing more to be said or to be done tonight, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather and the still more miserable ways of our fellowmen.

Of all ruins, that of a noble mind is the most deplorable.

A man always finds it hard to realize that he may have finally lost a woman's love, however badly he may have treated her.

The ways of fate are indeed hard to understand. If there is not some compensation hereafter, then the world is a cruel jest.

Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning.

My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so.