A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he would be too old to be a clerk or a gardener or a police-court magistrate, that he is ripe to govern a country.

An art is only great and significant if it is one that all may enjoy. The art of a clique is but a plaything.

We do not write as we want, but as we can.

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.

One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul.

I am sick of this way of life. The weariness and sadness of old age make it intolerable. I have walked with death in hand, and death's own hand is warmer than my own. I don't wish to live any longer.

Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.