We have to believe that everything has a cause, as the spider spins its web in order to catch flies. But it does this before it knows there are such things as flies.

There is something in our minds like sunshine and the weather, which is not under our control. When I write, the best things come to me from I know not where.

We often have need of a profound philosophy to restore to our feelings their original state of innocence, to find our way out of the rubble of things alien to us, to begin to feel for ourselves and to speak ourselves, and I might almost say to exist ourselves.

If all else fails, the character of a man can be recognized by nothing so surely as by a jest which he takes badly.

Good taste is either that which agrees with my taste or that which subjects itself to the rule of reason. From this we can see how useful it is to employ reason in seeking out the laws of taste.

A man of spirit must not think of the word difficulty as so much as existing. Away with it!

Sickness is mankind's greatest defect.