Focus on long term success but be willing to make short term adjustments to get there
This magnificent butterfly finds a little heap of dirt and sits still on it; but man will never on his heap of mud keep still.
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.
I don't like work. . . but I like what is in work - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, not for others - which no other man can ever know.
You must squeeze out of yourself every sensation, every thought, every image, - mercilessly, without reserve and without remorse: you must search the darkest corners of your heart, the most remote recesses of your brain, - you must search them for the image, for the glamour, for the right expression. And you must do it sincerely, at any cost: you must do it so that at the end of your day's work you should feel exhausted, emptied of every sensation and every thought, with a blank mind and an aching heart, with the notion that there is nothing, - nothing left in you.
If you don't make mistakes, you don't make anything.
I think that this necessity to travel, to see, it's part of human nature.
But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I, have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments?
Twere better to be born a stone Of ruder shape, and feeling none, Than with a tenderness like mine And sensibilities so fine! Ah, hapless wretch! condemn'd to dwell Forever in my native shell, Ordained to move when others please, Not for my own content or ease; But toss'd and buffeted about, Now in the water and now out.
Once you've achieved everything, there is nothing left. You take out the core of being human: the striving.