One cannot lay a foundation by scattering stones, nor is a reputation for good work to be got by strewing volumes about the world.

To drink for pleasure may be a distraction, but to drink from misery is always a danger.

It is human nature to overestimate the thing you've never had.

irony is an indispensable ingredient of the critical vision; it is the safest antidote to sentimental decay.

Given two tempers and the time, the ordinary marriage produces anarchy.

The only natural human beings seem to be those who are making trouble.

1. Always wait between books for the springs to fill up and flow over. 2. Always preserve within a wild sanctuary, an inaccessible valley of reveries. 3. Always, and as far as it is possible, endeavor to touch life on every side; but keep the central vision of the mind, the inmost light, untouched and untouchable.