As a remedy against all ills - poverty, sickness, and melancholy - only one thing is absolutely necessary: a liking for work

In putting off what one has to do, one runs the risk of never being able to do it.

I have cultivated my hysteria with delight and terror. Now I suffer continually from vertigo, and today, 23rd of January, 1862, I have received a singular warning, I have felt the wind of the wing of madness pass over me.

Today I had a strange warning. I felt the wind of insanity brush my mind.

A book is a garden, a party, a company by the way.

To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world—impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito.

The more a man cultivates the arts the less he fornicates. A more and more apparent cleavage occurs between the spirit and the brute.