Don't dissipate your powers; strive to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it will surely repent of every ill-judged outlay.

Taste is only to be educated by contemplation, not of the tolerably good but of the truly excellent. I therefore show you only the best works; and when you are grounded in these, you will have a standard for the rest, which you will know how to value, without overrating them.

Only that type of story deserves to be called moral that shows us that one has the power within oneself to act, out of the conviction that there is something better, even against one's own inclination.

For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.

We all walk in mysteries. We are surrounded by an atmosphere about which we still know nothing at all.

A person places themselves on a level with the ones they praise.

A man who cannot command himself will always be a slave.