Let yourself go. Pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them.

Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talk that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence.

Take an old man's word; there's nothing worse than a muddle in all the world. It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that sound so dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror - on the things that I might have avoided. We can help one another but little. I used to think I could teach young people the whole of life, but I know better now, and all my teaching of George has come down to this: beware of muddle.

But why I cry out against Rubens is because he painted undressed people instead of naked ones.

Nonsense and beauty have close connections.

But after all, what have we to do with taverns? Real menace belongs to the drawing-room.

People have their own deaths as well as their own lives, and even if there is nothing beyond death, we shall differ in our nothingness.