It gives me no joy to be praised at the expense of a better artist, by someone who does not know the difference or who thinks me too vain to be aware of it myself.

In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we loathe, we graft into our very soul.

An audience of twenty thousand, sitting on its hands, could not have produced such an echoing silence.

How can people trust the harvest, unless they see it sown?

Clouds of black birds rose up wailing and screaming, like the thoughts of my heart.

Power is the test. Some, once they have it, are content to buy the show of liking, and punish those who withhold it; then you have a despot. But some keep a true eye for how they seem to others, and care about it, which holds them back from much mischief.

To hate excellence is to hate the gods.