“He would not stoop even to pick up the old manuscript I am going to seek with so much trouble and fatigue. And in truth man is made rather to eat ices than to pore over old texts.”

To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.

Time deals gently only with those who take it gently.

To be willing to die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture.

Man is summed up in Art. All the rest is moonshine.

Stupidity is far more dangerous than evil, for evil takes a break from time to time, stupidity does not.

For the majority of people, though they do not know what to do with this life, long for another that shall have no end.

Yet, every now and then, there would pass a young girl, slender, fair and desirable, arousing in young men a not ignoble desire to possess her, and stirring in old men regrets for ecstasy not seized and now forever past.

Our passions are ourselves.

It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel.

What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance?

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.

In art as in love, instinct is enough.

The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.

All the good writers of confessions, from Augustine onwards, are men who are still a little in love with their sins.

Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.

We have never heard the devil’s side of the story, God wrote all the book.

I still remember when my teacher told me that football wouldn’t give me anything to eat.

Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

Me is the only one what won’t be gobbled up because giants is never eating giants.

The less you eat, drink and read books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc.

I’ll starve to death before I’ll cook for myself. I think I could survive a week without eating.

I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.

The only people I truly envy are those who can play a musical instrument and those who can eat anything they want without gaining weight.

Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably.