It is the north wind that lashes men into Vikings; it is the soft, luscious south wind which lulls them to lotus dreams.

The heart of silver falls ever into the hands of brass. The sensitive herb is eaten as grass by the swine.

I have met a thousand scamps; but I never met one who considered himself so. Self-knowledge isn't so common.

In a few generations more, there will probably be no room at all allowed for animals on the earth: no need of them, no toleration of them. An immense agony will have then ceased, but with it there will also have passed away the last smile of the world's youth.

A pipe is a pocket philosopher,--a truer one than Socrates, for it never asks questions. Socrates must have been very tiresome, when one thinks of it.

Imagination without culture is crippled and moves slowly; but it can be pure imagination, and rich also, as folk-lore will tell the vainest.

A great love is an absolute isolation and an absolute absorption.