Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to chance.

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

The common man is not concerned about the passage of time, the man of talent is driven by it.

The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.

Nothing shocks our moral feelings so deeply as cruelty does. We can forgive every other crime, but not cruelty. The reason for this is that it is the very opposite of compassion.

Genius is an intellect that has become unfaithful to its destiny.

Truth is no harlot who throws her arms round the neck of him who does not desire her; on the contrary, she is so coy a beauty that even the man who sacrifices everything to her can still not be certain of her favors.