Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed.

Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability.

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.

Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first.

A man's delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes.

It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.

If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the first sight of a letter from him.

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

It is only a man's own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else's meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

Compassion is the basis of morality.

In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.

The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time.

A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with one's own.

Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.

Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.

There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.

Money is human happiness in the abstract; he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money.

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

Music is the melody whose text is the world.

Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune.

Journalists are like dogs, when ever anything moves they begin to bark.

The longer a man's fame is likely to last, the longer it will be in coming.

It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us.

The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes.

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.

The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.

Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them.

Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.

Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.

Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly.

Honor means that a man is not exceptional; fame, that he is. Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost.

Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head.

We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.

I'm an emotional gangster. I cry once every month.

It's just like, damn - I'm competing with myself.

My personality is humongous.

If you want it, and the more you keep hearing you can't have it, you just go and get it.

What counts the most for women is having the confidence to make your own money.

People want me to be so full of shame that I used to dance. I would never be ashamed of it. I made a lot of money. I had a good time, and it showed me a lot.

I cannot turn my life back around. I'm already a public figure, I'm famous... It's like, I might as well keep it going, might as well make the money.