The delicate muses lose their head if their attention is once diverted. Perhaps if you were successful abroad in talking and dealing with men, you would not come back to your bookshelf and your task. When the spirit chooses you for its scribe to publish some commandment, it makes you odious to men and men odious to you, and you shall accept that loathsomeness with joy. The moth must fly to the lamp, and you must solve those questions though you die.

Every day, a little sadder, a little madder. Will someone get me a ladder?

If you cannot be free be as free as you can.

A weed is a plant whose virtue is not yet known.

When we have arrived at the question, the answer is already near.

The thing done avails, and not what is said about it.

No man has ever had a point of pride that was not injurious to him.