The "religion of pity" to which people would like to convert us- oh, we know well enough the hysterical little men and women who need this religion at present as a veil and an adornment!

It is difficult to live among people because silence is so difficult.

A thought comes when it will, not when I will.

It is not your sin - it is your moderation that cries to heaven; your very sparingness in sin cries to heaven!

At one time or another, almost every politician needs an honest man so badly that, like a ravenous wolf, he breaks into a sheep-fold: not to devour the ram he has stolen, however, but rather to conceal himself behind its wooly back.

Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not virtue, but efficiency (virtue in the Renaissance sense, virtu , virtue free of moral acid).

Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.