You cannot learn to fly by flying. First you must learn to walk, to run, to climb, to dance.

There is sense in hoping for recognition in a distant future only when we take it for granted that mankind will remain essentially unchanged, and that whatever is great is not for one age only but will be looked upon as great for all time.

Books for general reading always smell bad; the odor of common people hangs around them.

Belief in form, but disbelief in content - that's what makes an aphorism charming.

Insects sting, not from malice, but because they want to live. It is the same with critics; they desire our blood not our pain.

To recognize untruth as a condition of life--that certainly means resisting accustomed value feelings in a dangerous way; and a philosophy that risks this would by that token alone place itself beyond good and evil.

There are slavish souls who carry their appreciation for favors done them so far that they strangle themselves with the rope of gratitude.