Behind us, as we go, all things assume pleasing forms, as clouds do far off. Not only things familiar and stale, but even the tragic and terrible, are comely, as they take their place in the pictures of memory.

If a man sits down to think, he is immediately asked if he has a headache.

I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I'm not afraid of falling into my inkpot.

No facts to me are sacred; none are profane.

My life is for itself and not for a spectacle.

All the elements, whose aid man calls in, will sometimes become big masters.

How shall a man escape from his ancestors, or draw off from his veins the black drop which he drew from his father's or mother's life?