“Happiness is above all things the calm, glad certainty of innocence.”

Most critical fault-finding, when reduced to its essentials, simply amounts to reproach of the author because he is himself — thinks, feels, sees, and creates, as himself, instead of seeing and creating in the way the critic would have done.

I am sticking as closely to my subject as I can; for my subject is precisely this, that it is the masses, the majority

The worst that a man can do to himself is to do injustice to others.

I propose to raise a revolution against the lie that the majority has the monopoly of the truth.

Friends are to be feared, not so much for what they make us do as what they keep us from doing.

Every man shares the responsibility and the guilt of the society to which he belongs.

The man whom God wills to slay in the struggle of life – he first individualizes.

I’m afraid for all those who’ll have the bread snatched from their mouths by these machines. What business has science and capitalism got, bringing all these new inventions into the works, before society has produced a generation educated up to using them!

If only I could master that demon of procrastination that goes about like a roaring lion and devours all my good intentions, I should become the most punctual man in the world.

I’m no longer prepared to accept what people say and what’s written in books. I must think things out for myself, and try to find my own answer.

NORA: I must stand on my own two feet if I’m to get to know myself and the world outside. That’s why I can’t stay here with you any longer.

What sort of truths are they that the majority usually supports? They are truths that are of such advanced age that they are beginning to break up. And if a truth is as old as that, it is also in a fair way to become a lie, gentlemen.

Marriage! Nothing else demands so much of a man.

You don’t get nothing for nothing in this life.

Oh, life would be all right if we didn’t have to put up with these damned creditors who keep pestering us with the demands of their ideals.

A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.

All novels are about certain minorities: the individual is a minority.

Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still.

The moment I am sure that I know is also the moment I cease to grow.

All I am certain of right now is that I don’t want to go anywhere, and that’s not bad for someone who always used to run.

Looking and not finding is certainly one of the most frustrating ways to spend time.

I start from scratch with each movie; I wipe the slate and I certainly don’t rely on some bag of acting tricks I’ve amassed over the years.

The problem is that the people with the most ridiculous ideas are always the people who are most certain of them.

The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.