Nothing is so silly as the expression of a man who is being complimented.

Great authors are admirable in this respect: in every generation they make for disagreement. Through them we become aware of our differences.

Complete possession is proved only by giving. All you are unable to give possesses you.

Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.

I owe much to my friends; but, all things considered, it strikes me that I owe even more to my enemies. The real person springs life under a sting even better than under a caress.

Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. Its their way of falling.

It is good to follow one's own bent, so long as it leads upward.

Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.

It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves - in finding themselves.

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.

A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it; what another would have written as well, do not write it....

Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.

Art begins with resistance - at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.

Know thyself. A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever studies himself arrest his own development. A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.

Art is the collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

The want of logic annoys. Too much logic bores. Life eludes logic, and everything that logic alone constructs remains artificial and forced.

It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking to it that one overcomes it; often it is by working on the one next to it. Some things and some people have to be...