What good is a book that does not even transport us beyond all books?

There are highly gifted spirits who are always infertile simply because, owing to a weakness in temperament, they are too impatient to wait out their pregnancy to term.

They devour each other and cannot even digest themselves.

Men seldom persevere in a vocation unless they believe or can convince themselves that it is fundamentally more important than anyother calling. Women are the same with their lovers.

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!

When a man is ill his very goodness is sickly.

Little prigs and three-quarter madmen may have the conceit that the laws of nature are constantly broken for their sakes.