Philosophy should be an energy; it should find its aim and its effect in the amelioration of mankind.
As for the author, he is profoundly unaware of what the classical or romantic genre might consist of.... In literature, as in allthings, there is only the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the true and the false.
He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two.
A fall from such a height is rarely straight downwards.
The soul has illusions as the bird has wings: it is supported by them.
Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit.... They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.