There is no way to penetrate the surface of life but by attacking it earnestly at a particular point.

A cat cares for you only as a source of food, security and a place in the sun.

One should never criticize his own work except in a fresh and hopeful mood. The self-criticism of a tired mind is suicide.

To retire to the monastery, or the woods, or the sea, is to escape from the sharp suggestions that spur on ambition.

A person of mature years and ripe development, who is expecting nothing from literature but the corroboration and renewal of past ideas, may find satisfaction in a lucidity so complete as to occasion no imaginative excitement, but young and ambitious students are not content with it. They seek the excitement because they are capable of the growth that it accompanies.

Each man must have his I; it is more necessary to him than bread; and if he does not find scope for it within the existing institutions he will be likely to make trouble.

To persuade is more trouble than to dominate, and the powerful seldom take this trouble if they can avoid it.