A man can be himself only so long as he is alone.

With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.

For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.

The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for.

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.

Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them.

Our life is a loan received from death with sleep as the daily interest on this loan.