living for oneself is a bad thing. The keenest intellectual pleasure comes from being able to return to the self after being absent from it for a spell. But living all the time inside the self, that most tyrannical, demanding and capricious of companions - no, one shouldn't do it.

No human creature can give orders to love.

My strength has not equaled my mad ambition. I have remained obscure; I have done worse -- I have touched success, and allowed it to escape me.

... the progress of the language has caused us to lose many old treasures. It is thus with all progress, and one must make the best of it.

Simplicity is the most difficult thing to secure in this world; it is the last limit of experience and the last effort of genius.

Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.

The prayers of a lover are more imperious than the menaces of the whole world