No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you yourself alone.

Knowing things halfway is a greater success than knowing things completely: it takes things to be simpler than they really are andso makes its opinions more easily understandable and persuasive.

Poets and writers who are in love with the superlative all want to do more than they can.

If we make sacrifices in doing good or in doing ill, it does not alter the ultimate value of our actions; even if we stake our life in the cause, as martyrs do for the sake of our church : it is a sacrifice to our longing for power, or for the purpose of conserving our sense of power.

He who has always spared himself much will in the end become sickly of so much consideration. Praised be what hardens!

Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them.

How difficult it is to live when one feels that the judgment of many millenniums is around one and against one.