Each concession we make is accompanied by an inner diminution of which we are not immediately conscious.

Write books only if you are going to say in them the things you would never dare confide to anyone.

To get up in the morning, wash and then wait for some unforeseen variety of dread or depression. I would give the whole universe and all of Shakespeare for a grain of ataraxy.

Nothing is so wearing as the possession or abuse of liberty.

Let us not be needlessly bitter: certain failures are sometimes fruitful.

To Foreswear vengeance is to chain oneself to forgiveness, to flounder in pardon, to be tainted by the hatred smothered within.

Utopia is a mixture of childish rationalism and secularized angelism.