It is sad, no doubt, to exhaust one's strength and one's days in cleaving the bosom of this jealous earth, which compels us to wring from it the treasures of its fertility, when a bit of the blackest and coarsest bread is, at the end of the day's work, the sole recompense and the sole profit attaching to so arduous a toil.

The trade of authorship is a violent, and indestructible obsession.

The marriage vow is an absurdity imposed by society.

Humanity is outraged in me and with me.

Oblivion is the flower that grows best on graves.

Lying, like license, has its degrees.

Talent, will and genius are natural phenomena like the lake, the volcano, the mountain, the wind, the star, the cloud.