“You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me.”

Helmer: “Before all else you are a wife and a mother.” Nora: “That I no longer believe. I believe that before all else I am a human being.”

Before I write down one word, I have to have the character in my mind through and through. I must penetrate into the last wrinkle of his soul.

Many a man can save himself if he admits he’s done wrong and takes his punishment.

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

Castles in the air – they are so easy to take refuge in. And so easy to build too.

To live is to war with trolls.

What is the difference in being alone with another and being alone by one’s self?

If you doubt yourself, then indeed you stand on shaky ground.

Nothing is impossible that one desires with an indomitable will.

I’m inclined to think we are all ghosts-every one of us. It’s not just what we inherit from our mothers and fathers that haunts us. Its all kinds of old defunct theories, all sorts of old defunct beliefs, and things like that.

This is life! It can harden and it can exalt!

And what if I did run my ship aground; oh, still it was splendid to sail it!

The man-at-arms is the only man.

The younger generation will come knocking at my door.

It’s such sport with these heroes of finance: they are like beads on a string – when one slips off, all the rest follow.

To crave for happiness in this world is simply to be possessed by a spirit of revolt. What right have we to happiness?

It is pleasant to have a kind word now and then when one is not near enough to have a kind glance or a hearty shake by the hand.

Socrates said, our only knowledge was “To know that nothing could be known;” a pleasant Science enough, which levels to an ass Each Man of Wisdom, future, past, or present.

Power is so pleasant that men quickly learn to be greedy in the enjoyment of it, and to flatter themselves that patriotism requires them to be imperious.

It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright bare room, with a floor of red tiles which look clean though they are not; with a painted ceiling whereon pink griffins and blue amorini sport in a forest of yellow violins and bassoons.

The book itself is a curious artifact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device, compact, often very pleasant to look at and handle, that can last decades, even centuries.

It was pleasant, too, to fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in unfamiliar fastenings, to lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble churches opposite, and, close below, Arno, gurgling against the embankment of the road.

Luxury is the income tax of vanity. But it is so pleasant.

Nothing could be more pleasant than to live in solitude, enjoy the spectacle of nature, and occasionally read some book.