The moral I draw is that the writer should seek his reward in the pleasure of his work and in release from the burden of thought; and, indifferent to aught else, care nothing for praise or censure, failure or success.

When people say they do not care what others think of them, for the most part they deceive themselves. Generally they mean only that they will do as they choose, in the confidence that no one will know their vagaries; and at the utmost only that they are willing to act contrary to the opinion of the majority because they are supported by the approval of their neighbours. It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.

You know, the Philistines have long since discarded the rack and stake as a means of suppressing the opinions they feared: they've discovered a much more deadly weapon of destruction -- the wisecrack.

I do not think you want too much sincerity in society. It would be like an iron girder in a house of cards.

I thought it was only in revealed religion that a mistranslation improved the sense.

One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one's life with her.

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