When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.

The disappointed one speaks. I searched for great human beings; I always found only the apes of their ideals.

Every virtue inclines to stupidity, every stupidity to virtue; "stupid to the point of sanctity," they say in Russia, - let us be careful lest out of pure honesty we eventually become saints and bores!

Every fact and every work exercises a fresh persuasion over every age and every new species of man. History always enunciates new truths.

One must learn to be a sponge if one wants to be loved by hearts that overflow.

And this do I call immaculate perception of all things: to want nothing else from them, but to be allowed to lie before them as a mirror with a hundred facets.

The value of many men and books rests solely on their faculty for compelling all to seek out the most hidden and intimate things.