The hunter for aphorisms on human nature has to fish in muddy water, and he is even condemned to find much of his own mind.

It is good to know what a man is, and also what the world takes him for. But you do not understand him until you have learnt how he understands himself.

Up to a certain point every man is what he thinks he is.

True penitence condemns to silence. What a man is ready to recall he would be willing to repeat.

Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived. It is a pity that this is still the only knowledge of their wives at which some men seem to arrive.

We say that a girl with her doll anticipates the mother. It is more true, perhaps, that most mothers are still but children with playthings.

Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart's blood, as we write it, turns to mere dull ink.