We cannot too soon convince ourselves how easily we may be dispensed with in the world. What important personages we imagine ourselves to be! We think that we alone are the life of the circle in which we move; in our absence, we fancy that life, existence, breath will come to a general pause, and, alas, the gap which we leave is scarcely perceptible, so quickly is it filled again; nay, it is often the place, if not of something better, at least for something more agreeable.

When you are in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude. We don't get to know people when they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are like.

Words express neither objects nor ourselves.

You can put up with everything in this world except not with a long stretch of beautiful days.

If one doesn't know one's own country, one doesn't have standards for foreign countries.

I will say with Lorenzo de Medici that those who do not hope for another life are always dead to this one.

If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet.