“Go forward while you can, but if your strength fails you, sit down near the road and gaze without anger or envy at those who pass by. They don’t have far to go, either.”

Take what you can yourself, and don’t let others get you into their hands; to belong to oneself, that is the whole thing in life.

I agree with no one’s opinion. I have some of my own.

Don’t force me into saying what I don’t want to say, and what I won’t say.

A son is like a lopped off branch. As a falcon he comes when he wills and goes where he lists.

Death’s an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.

I don’t see why it’s impossible to express everything that’s on one’s mind.

What did I hope for, what did I expect, what rich future did I foresee, when the phantom of my first love, rising up for an instant, barely called forth one sigh, one mournful sentiment?

Most people can’t understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.

However much you knock at nature’s door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words.

Time, as is well known, sometimes flies like a bird and sometimes crawls like a worm, but human beings are generally particularly happy when they don’t notice whether it’s passing quickly or slowly.

What’s terrible is that there’s nothing terrible, that the very essence of life is petty, uninteresting, and degradingly trite.

Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.

Belonging to oneself–the whole essence of life lies in that.

No matter how often you knock at nature’s door, she won’t answer in words you can understand–for Nature is dumb. She’ll vibrate and moan like a violin, but you mustn’t expect a song.

Love isn’t actually a feeling at all–it’s an illness, a certain condition of body and soul…. Usually it takes possession of someone without his permission, all of a sudden, against his will–just like cholera or a fever.

That is what poetry can do. It speaks to us of what does not exist, which is not only better than what exists, but even more like the truth.

I shall never write an autobiography, I’m much too jealous of my privacy for that.

Jealousy is not a barometer by which the depth of love can be read. It merely records the degree of the lover’s insecurity.

Since man is in the likeness of the angels, and they would be jealous of him, for this reason, He consulted them.

A negative judgment gives you more satisfaction than praise, provided it smacks of jealousy.

What makes the pain we feel from shame and jealousy so cutting is that vanity can give us no assistance in bearing them.

The lovesick, the betrayed, and the jealous all smell alike.

Sure, I can get a little bit jealous. The good part about jealousy is that it comes from passion. It’s also the dangerous part and it’s an ugly emotion that hurts.

My wife’s jealousy is getting ridiculous. The other day she looked at my calendar and wanted to know who May was.