People will allow their faults to be shown them; they will let themselves be punished for them; they will patiently endure many things because of them; they only become impatient when they have to lay them aside.

The most congenial social occasions are those ruled by cheerful deference of each for all.

It is so hard that one cannot really have confidence in doctors and yet cannot do without them.

One doesn't always lose when one has to do without.

One is never satisfied with a portrait of persons whom one knows. That is why I have always pitied portraitists. One demands so seldom of others the impossible, but demands just that of the portraitists.

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiation - creation - there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans.

All lyrical work must, as a whole, be perfectly intelligible, but in some particulars a little unintelligible.