Every man remembers his childhood as a kind of mythical age, just as every nation's childhood is its mythical age.

If the best company is that which we leave feeling most satisfied with ourselves, it follows that it is the company we leave most bored.

I may be wrong, but it seems rare in our age to find a widely praised person whose own mouth is not the source of that praise.

What do you do there, moon, in the sky? Tell me what you do, silent moon. When evening comes you rise and go contemplating wastelands; then you set.

He who has the courage to laugh is almost as much a master of the world as he who is ready to die.

The world laughs at things it would really prefer to admire, and like Aesop's fox it criticizes things it covets.

The artisan or scientist or the follower of whatever discipline who has the habit of comparing himself not with other followers but with the discipline itself will have a lower opinion of himself, the more excellent he is.