“That is what I like; that is what a young man ought to be. Whatever be his pursuits, his eagerness in them should know no moderation, and leave him no sense of fatigue.”

“This man in his own country prayed we know not to what powers.
We pray them to reward him for his bravery in ours.”

“How is it possible not to strive to know what the awakening minds of the young are eager to learn from us? It is little less than criminal that we should put them off with foolish speech or lies.”

“A man should not strive to eliminate his complexes but to get into accord with them: they are legitimately what directs his conduct in the world.”

“There is nothing that sharpens a man's senses so acutely as to know that bitter and determined enemies are in pursuit of him night and day.”

“a million blockheads looking authoritatively into one man of what you call genius, or noble sense, will make nothing but nonsense out of him and his qualities, and his virtues and defects, if they look till the end of time. He understands them, sees what they are; but that they should understand him, and see with rounded outline what his limits are,—this, which would mean that they are bigger than he, is forever denied them. Their one good understanding of him is that they at last should loyally say, "We do not quite understand thee; we perceive thee to be nobler and wiser and bigger than we, and will loyally follow thee."”

“You could know a man not by what his friends said about him, but by how he treated his servants.”

“Do whatever you do intensely. The artist is the man who leaves the crowd and goes pioneering. With him there is an idea which is his life.”

“And how do I know that the hate of death is not like a man who has lost his home when young and does not know where his home is to return to?”

“What a man does in his closet ought not to affect the rights of third persons.”