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

One must pray first, but afterwards one must help oneself. God does not care for cowards.

Dissimulation is the only thing that makes society possible; without its amenities the world would be a bear-garden.

The world never leaves one in ignorance or in peace.

A man may be a great statesman, and yet dislike his wife, and like somebody else's. A man may be a great hero, and yet he may have an unseemly passion, or an unpaid tailor. But the British public does not understand this. ... It thinks, unhappily or happily as you may choose to consider, that genius should keep the whole ten commandments. Now, genius is conspicuous for breaking them.

Intensely selfish people are always very decided as to what they wish. They do not waste their energies in considering the good of others.

Friendship is usually treated...as a tough...thing which will survive all manner of bad treatment. But this is an exceedingly great and foolish error; it may die in an hour of a single unwise word.