I judge people's charm by the ease with which I express myself in their presence.

The finest life is spent creating oneself, not procreating.

Hero worship has died with heroes, and if someone bows down today, it is to pick up something.

doubt seems the only purity for those who are too fervent to deny, and too lucid to affirm.

The past is such a subtle thing. [But] in the end, nothing else exists, everything is made of the past, even the future.

A scholar's heart is a dark well in which are buried many aborted feelings that rise to the surface as arguments.

What makes bad writers so annoying is their good passages.