Mastery has been achieved when one neither makes a mistake nor hesitates in the performance.

Impoliteness is frequently the sign of an awkward modesty that loses its head when surprised and hopes to conceal this with rudeness.

One must repay good and ill; but why just to the person who did us good or ill?

Some people do not become thinkers simply because their memories are too good.

Shared joys make a friend, not shared sufferings.

As refined fare serves a hungry man as well as and no better than coarser food, the more pretentious artist will not dream of inviting the hungry man to his meal.

Only great pain is, as the teacher of great suspicion, the ultimate liberator of the spirit...I doubt whether such pain improves us-but I do know it deepens us.