Who are you to condemn another's sin? He who condemns sin becomes part of it, espouses it.

A thought which does not result in an action is nothing much, and an action which does not proceed from a thought is nothing at all.

When writing of oneself one should show no mercy. Yet why at the first attempt to discover one's own truth does all inner strength seem to melt away in floods of self-pity and tenderness and rising tears?

Optimism approves of everything, submits to everything, believes everything; it is the virtue above all of the taxpayer.

What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight are hardly so hovered around.

God ordains that beggars should beg for greatness, as for all else, when greatness shines out of them, and they don't know it.

Have you never been moved by poor men's fidelity, the image of you they form in their simple minds? Why should you always talk of their envy, without understanding that what they ask of you is not so much your worldly goods, as something very hard to define, which they themselves can put no name to; yet at times it consoles their loneliness; a dream of splendor, of magnificence, a tawdry dream, a poor man's dream -and yet God blesses it!