Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing

A forest bird never wants a cage.

...every man shares the responsibility and the guilt of the society to which he belongs.

Before I write down one word, I have to have the character in my mind through and through. I must penetrate into the last wrinkle of his soul.

Each bird must sing with his own throat.

But I almost think we are all of us ghosts. It is not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that “walks” in us. It is all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we cannot shake them off. Whenever I take up a newspaper, I seem to see ghosts gliding between the lines.

Take the life-lie away from the average man and straight away you take away his happiness.