One should part from life as Odysseus parted from Nausicaa-blessing it rather than in love with it.

Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.

Nobody thanks a witty man for politeness when he puts himself on a par with a society in which it would not be polite to show one's wit.

When I contemplated purpose I also contemplated chance and foolishness.

Rendering oneself unarmed when one had been the best-armed, out of a height of feeling-that is the means to real peace, which must always rest on a peace of mind.

The idealist is incorrigible: if he is thrown out of his heaven he makes an ideal of his hell.

With deep men, as with deep wells, it takes a long time for anything that falls into them to hit bottom. Onlookers, who almost never wait long enough, readily suppose that such men are callous and unresponsive--or even boring.