“Anyone taken as an individual is tolerably sensible and reasonable – as a member of a crowd, he at once becomes a blockhead.”

Man is an imitative creature.

A noble heart will always capitulate to reason.

As soon as I have begun to fear I have ceased to fear.

Who dares nothing, need hope for nothing.

If you wish to know yourself observe how others act. If you wish to understand others look into your own heart.

Why should I deem myself to be a chisel, when I could be the artist?

I feel that I am a man of destiny.

There are evil spirits who suddenly fix their abode in man’s unguarded breast, causing us to commit devilish deeds, and then, hurrying back to their native hell, leave behind the stings of remorse in the poisoned bosom.

Pain is short, and joy is eternal.

Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men.

What is life without the radiance of love?

Satisfy a few to please many is bad.

The voice of the majority is no proof of justice.

Accursed be he who plays with the devil.

I follow my heart, for I can trust it.

I know that we often tremble at an empty terror; yet the false fancy brings a real misery.

Society expects man to be a passive social animal who believes like the People of the Field in “Jurgen” that “to do what you always have done” and “what is expected of you” are the twin rules of life.

A devotee who can call on God while living a householder’s life is a hero indeed. God thinks: ‘He is blessed indeed who prays to me in the midst of his worldly duties.

No government has ever been, or can ever be, wherein time-servers and blockheads will not be uppermost.

Manipulated by fashion, self-serving art scholars and the vagaries of the auction block.

A majority of women seem to consider themselves sent into the world for the sole purpose of displaying dry goods, and it is only when acting the part of an animated milliner’s block that they feel they are performing their appropriate mission.

If isolation tempers the strong, it is the stumbling-block of the uncertain.

One should, when overwhelmed by the shadow of a giant, move aside and see if the colossal shadow isn’t merely that of a pygmy blocking out the sun.

Stress is actually the number one thing that blocks people from their happiness and well-being and from getting what they want.