Start with the belief that your life can indeed be changed, and that you have the power to change it.

The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.

The real Brahms is nothing more than a sentimental voluptuary. rather tiresomely addicted to dressing himself up as Handel or Beethoven and making a prolonged and intolerable noise.

Nothing remains beautiful and interesting except thought, because the thought is the life.

There is, on the whole, nothing on earth intended for innocent people so horrible as a school. To begin with, it is a prison. But in some respects more cruel than a prison. In a prison, for instance, you are not forced to read books written by the warders and the governor. . . .In the prison you are not forced to sit listening to turnkeys discoursing without charm or interest on subjects that they don't understand and don't care about, and therefore incapable of making you understand or care about. In a prison they may torture your body; but they do not torture your brains.

You cannot be a hero without being a coward.

Idiots are always in favour of inequality of income (their only chance of eminence), and the really great in favour of equality.