Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.
A novel is a work of poetry. In order to write it, one must have tranquility of spirit and of impression.
Men do not accept their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and worship those whom they have tortured to death.
The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.
Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.
Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.
Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare!
Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.
To love someone means to see him as God intended him.
There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.
A real gentleman, even if he loses everything he owns, must show no emotion. Money must be so far beneath a gentleman that it is hardly worth troubling about.