“Hell is full of musical amateurs.”

Only in books has mankind known perfect truth, love and beauty.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own.

You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you have lost something.

Your friends are all the dullest dogs.

Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby.

Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn’t!

In heaven an angel is no one in particular.

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

Youth is wasted on the young.

The play was a great success, but audience was a dismal failure.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity.

I choose not to make a graveyard of my body for the rotting corpses of dead animals.

Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.

Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.

My way of joking is to tell the truth. It’s the funniest joke in the world.

In love as in sport, the amateur status must be strictly maintained.

You politicians remain professional because the voters remain amateur.

When we’re living as amateurs, we’re running away from our calling – meaning our work, our destiny, the obligation to become our truest and highest selves.

The amateur tweets. The pro works.

Every master was once a beginner. Every pro was once an amateur.

The sign of the amateur is overglorification of and preoccupation with the mystery. The professional shuts up. She doesn’t talk about it. She does her work.

I’m very, very amateur, which is funny because I’m not in the amateur leagues.

Chess has this in common with making poetry; that the desire for it comes upon the amateur in gusts.