We should judge a man much more surely from what he dreams than from what he thinks.

Large, heavy, ragged black clouds hung like crape hammocks beneath the starry cope of the night. You would have said that they were the cobwebs of the firmament.

I'd like a drink. I desire to forget life. Life is a hideous invention by somebody I don't know. It doesn't last, and it's good for nothing. You break your neck simply living.

We would be ashamed of our best behavior if the people knew the motives of our behaving so.

As we have said, robust souls are sometimes almost, but not entirely, overthrown by strokes of misfortune....Despair has steps leading upward. From total depression we rise to despondency, from despondency to affliction, from affliction to melancholy. Melancholy is a twilight state in which suffering transmutes into a somber joy....Melancholy is the enjoyment of being sad.

It is only barbarous nations who have a sudden growth after a victory

He had, they said, tasted in succession all the apples of the tree of knowledge, and, whether from hunger or disgust, had ended by tasting the forbidden fruit.