However much we may feel for the misery of someone close to us, we always act with some artificiality in their presence. We hold-back from telling them everything we think, often because we do not genuinely mean what we say; or because we take a pleasure in their plight, thankful that we are not affected.

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.

Subordination to morality can be slavish or vain or self- interested or resigned or gloomily enthusiastic or thoughtless or an act of despair, just as subordination to a prince can be: in itself it is nothing moral.

Whoever no longer finds greatness in God no longer finds it anywhere--he must either deny it or create it.

In praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame.

Annoyance is a physical malady that is in no way cured just because the annoying situation that causes it is eliminated.

Concerning great things one should either be silent or speak loftily.