“But every one has a besetting sin to which he returns.”

We like to see others, but don’t like others to see through us.

O love, when thou gettest dominion over us, we may bid good-by to prudence.

It is impossible to please all the world and one’s father.

People who make no noise are dangerous.

Sensible people find nothing useless.

It is no use running; to set out betimes is the main point.

I bend and do not break.

A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.

The more wary you are of danger, the more likely you are to meet it.

We ought to consider the end in everything.

Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish.

A mountain in labour shouted so loud that everyone, summoned by the noise, ran up expecting that she would be delivered of a city bigger than Paris; she brought forth a mouse.

We read on the foreheads of those who are surrounded by a foolish luxury, that fortune sells what she is thought to give.

Nothing is so oppressive as a secret: women find it difficult to keep one long; and I know a goodly number of men who are women in this regard.

To live lightheartedly but not recklessly; to be gay without being boisterous; to be courageous without being bold; to show trust and cheerful resignation without fatalism – this is the art of living.

Let ignorance talk as it will, learning has its value.

My love had grown one with my soul; it became darker, but did not go out.

In the menu, there should be a climax and a culmination. Come to it gently. One will suffice.

I have always thought the suicide should bump off at least one swine before taking off for parts unknown.

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution.

The last moments slipped by, one by one, irretrievable.

There’s not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.

The trick is to compose what one wants to compose and to get it commissioned afterward.

Out of life’s storm I carried only a few ideas – and not one feeling.