There is no such thing as a good influence. Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtures are not real to him. His sins, if there are such thing as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him.

The most terrible thing about it is not that it breaks one’s heart—hearts are made to be broken—but that it turns one’s heart to stone.

In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.

Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws.

If I hadn't believed it, then I wouldn't have seen it

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.