Tragedy is always a mistake; and the loneliness of the deepest thinker, the widest lover, ceases to be pathetic to us so soon as the sun is high enough above the mountains.

Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But in fact they are perpetually passing into one another. Fluid hardens to solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman.

Art can only be truly art by presenting an adequate outward symbol of some fact in the interior life.

I am 'too fiery'... yet I wish to be seen as I am and I would lose all rather than soften away anything.

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.

Beware of over-great pleasure in being popular or even beloved. As far as an amiable disposition and powers of entertainment make you so, it is a happiness; but if there is one grain of plausibility, it is poison.

Our desires, once realized, haunt us again less readily.