Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

A lazy person, whatever the talents with which he set out, will have condemned himself to second-hand thoughts and to second-rate friends.

What grape to keep its place in the sun, taught our ancestors to make wine?

If our elaborate and dominating bodies are given us to be denied at every turn, if our nature is always wrong and wicked, how ineffectual we are; like fishes not meant to swim.

The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.

The civilized are those who get more out of life than the uncivilized, and for this we are not likely to be forgiven.

A woman's desire for revenge outlasts all her other emotions.