There are two men in me--one lives in the full sense of the word, the other reasons and passes judgment on the first. The first will perhaps take leave of you and the world forever in an hour now; and the second . . . the second?

I have a congenital desire to contradict; my whole life is merely a chain of sad and unsuccessful contradictions to heart and mind. When faced with enthusiasm, I am seized by a midwinter freeze, and I suppose that frequent dealings with sluggish phlegmatics would have made a passionate dreamer.

If only people thought a little more about it, they would see that life is not worrying about so much.

Happy people are ignoramuses and glory is nothing else but success, and to achieve it one only has to be cunning.

One should never spurn a penitent criminal: in his despair he may become twice as much a criminal as before.

Afraid of decision, I buried my finer feelings in the depths of my heart and they died there.

Passions are merely ideas in their initial stage.