The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried.

To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death... We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere." "To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.

As soon as women become ours we are no longer theirs.

A father is very miserable who has no other hold on his children's affection than the need they have of his assistance, if that can be called affection.

Oh these foolish men! They could not create so much as a worm, but they create gods by the dozens.

If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.

We have more poets than judges and interpreters of poetry. It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one. There is, indeed, a certain low and moderate sort of poetry, that a man may well enough judge by certain rules of art; but the true, supreme, and divine poesy is equally above all rules and reason. And whoever discerns the beauty of it with the most assured and most steady sight sees no more than the quick reflection of a flash of lightning.