Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.

I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.

If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.

Let every foot have its own shoe.

It makes me hate accepting things that are probable when they are held up before me as infallibly true. I prefer these words which tone down and modify the hastiness of our propositions: "Perhaps, In some sort, Some, They say, I think," and the like.

The first lessons with which we should irrigate his mind should be those which teach him to know himself, and to know how to die ... and to live.

What enriches language is its being handled and exploited by beautiful minds-not so much by making innovations as by expanding it through more vigorous and varied applications, by extending it and deploying it. It is not words that they contribute: what they do is enrich their words, deepen their meanings and tie down their usage; they teach it unaccustomed rhythms, prudently though and with ingenuity.