A man should swallow a toad every morning to be sure of not meeting with anything more revolting in the day ahead.

Someone has said that to plagiarise from the ancients is to play the pirate beyond the Equator, but that to steal from the moderns is to pick pockets at street corners.

There aren't many benefactors who don't say, like Satan: All these things will I give you if you bow down and worship me.

Nearly all men are slaves for the same reason that the Spartans assigned for the servitude of the Persians -- lack of power to pronounce the syllable, "No." To be able to utter that word and live alone, are the only means to preserve one's freedom and one's character.

Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live.

Whoever is not a misanthrope at forty can never have loved mankind.

Men's hearts and faces are always wide asunder; women's are not only in close connection, but are mirror-like in the instant power of reflection.