I always went my own road and on my own legs where I had a mind to go

I am a great foe of favoritism in public life, in private life, and even in the delicate relationship of an author to his works.

Beyond the fence the forest stood up spectrally in the moonlight, and through the dim stir, through the faint sounds of that lamentable courtyard, the silence of the land went home to one's very heart - its mystery, its greatness, the amazing reality of its concealed life.

Any fool can carry on, but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time.

Every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and the human race come to an end.

This magnificent butterfly finds a little heap of dirt and sits still on it; but man will never on his heap of mud keep still.

We are snared into doing things for which we get called names, and things for which we get hanged, and yet the spirit may well survive - survive the condemnations, survive the halter, by Jove! And there are things - they look small enough sometimes too - by which some of us are totally and completely undone.