The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.

People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.

Don't learn to do, but learn in doing.

[P]oetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind one's own, but one does not like anyone else's.

Those who have never had a father can at any rate never know the sweets of losing one. To most men the death of his father is a new lease of life.

Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.

Brigands demand your money or your life; women require both.