The public easily confuses him who fishes in troubled waters with him who draws up water from the depths.

Posthumous men-myself, for example-are not as well understood as timely ones, but we are listened to better. More precisely: we are never understood-hence our authority.

In every party there is one person who, through his dotingly credulous enunciation of party principles, incites the other members to defection.

It is only those who know how to feel that "this is not good" who devise improvements.

We become aware, however, that all customs, even the hardest, grow pleasanter and milder with time, and that the severest way of life may become a habit and therefore a pleasure.

It is very noble hypocrisy not to talk of one's self.

What is done out of love always occurs beyond good and evil.