This is something that I cannot get over -- that a whole line could be written by half a man, that a work could be built on the quicksand of a character.

What do people have against convicts? Is living together in the pen of freedom, where young people engage in mutual psychology, any more beautiful?

How powerful social mores are! Only a spider's web lies across the volcano, yet it refrains from erupting.

Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time in essays.

I can say with pride that I have spent days and nights not reading anything, and that with unflagging energy I use every moment toacquire gradually an encyclopedic lack of education.

They judge lest they be judged.

My request that my writing be read twice has aroused great indignation. Unjustly so. After all, I do not ask that they be read once.