Age continually alters the faces of those who think or study, and so their portraits differ from one another and don't even resemble them for very long. I dream so much and live so little that I'm sometimes only three years old. But the next day I'm three hundred, if the dream has been sombre.

Life resembles a novel more often than novels resemble life.

A cigar numbs sorrow and fills the solitary hours with a million gracious images.

Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it.

... when we are misunderstood it is always our own fault. What the reader wants most of all is to be able to grasp what we think; but you loftily refuse to comply.

To be made evident, truth must be sought for; for of itself it is slow to appear, and between ourselves and God the obstacles are so many!

Fame and admiration weigh not a feather in the scale against friendship and love, for the heart languishes all the same.