To be alone is the fate of all great minds—a fate deplored at times, but still always chosen as the less grievous of two evils.

The little honesty that exists among authors is discernible in the unconscionable way they misquote from the writings of others.

Talent works for money and fame; the motive which moves genius to productivity is, on the other hand, less easy to determine.

...this our world, which is so real, with all its suns and milky ways is-nothing.

What people commonly call Fate is, as a general rule, nothing but their own stupid and foolish conduct.

Will without intellect is the most vulgar and common thing in the world, possessed by every blockhead, who, in the gratification of his passions, shows the stuff of which he is made.

Every parting gives a foretaste of death; every remeeting a foretaste of the resurrection. That is why even people who are indifferent to each other rejoice so much if they meet again after twenty or thirty years of separation.