A man can surely do what he wills to do, but cannot determine what he wills.

Reasonable and vicious are quite consistent with each other, in fact, only through their union are great and far-reaching crimes possible

We seldom think of what we have but always of what we lack. Therefore, rather than grateful, we are bitter.

You are free to do what you want, but you are not free to want what you want.

...a genuine work of art, can never be false, nor can it be discredited through the lapse of time, for it does not present an opinion but the thing itself.

Human life must be some form of mistake.

The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and slower it is in arriving at maturity. A man reaches the maturity of his reasoning powers and mental faculties hardly before the age of twenty-eight; a woman at eighteen.