One's days were too brief to take the burden of another's errors on one's shoulders. Each man lived his own life and paid his own price for living it.

It's either the wallpaper or me. One of us has to go. [These were his dying words.]

The honest ratepayer and his healthy family have no doubt often mocked at the dome-like forehead of the philosopher, and laughed over the strange perspective of the landscape that lies beneath him. If they really knew who he was, they would tremble. For Chuang Tsǔ spent his life in preaching the great creed of Inaction, and in pointing out the uselessness of all things.

I am not at all cynical, I have merely got experience, which, however, is very much the same thing.

When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.

It is always with the best intentions that the worst work is done.

I feel that if I kept it secret it might grow in my mind (as poisonous things grow in the dark) and take its place with the other terrible thoughts that gnaw me