It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not..

He who wants a rose must respect her thorn..

Nothing excellent can be done without leisure..

Families, I hate you! Shut-in homes, closed doors, jealous possessors of happiness.

The greatest intelligence is precisely the one that suffers the most from its own limitations..

He who makes great demands upon himself is naturally inclined to make great demands on others..

I would like the events never to be told directly by the author, but rather to be introduced (and several times, from various angles) by those among ….

It is only through restraint that man can manage not to suppress himself..

I advise the young to tell themselves constantly that most often it is up to them alone..

True kindness presupposes the faculty of imagining as one's own the suffering and joys of others..

Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding..

Great minds tend toward banality. It is the noblest effort of individualism. But it implies a sort of modesty, which is so rare that it is scarcely f….

I believe that in every circumstance I have been able to see rather clearly the most advantageous course I could follow, which is very rarely the one….

God depends on us. It is through us that God is achieved..

An artist cannot get along without a public; and when the public is absent, what does he do? He invents it, and turning his back on his age, he looks….

There are many things that seem impossible only so long as one does not attempt them..

I have never produced anything good except by a long succession of slight efforts..

Yet I'm sure there's something more to be read in a man. People dare not -- they dare not turn the page. The laws of mimicry -- I call them the laws ….

If one could recover the uncompromising spirit of one's youth, one's greatest indignation would be for what one has become..

Too chaste a youth leads to a dissolute old age..

I can't expect others to share my virtues. It's good enough for me if they share my vices..