One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
The most decisive actions of life are most often unconsidered actions.
The most gifted natures are perhaps also the most trembling.
The color of truth is gray.
The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say - because they were too obvious.
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. Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself-and thus make yourself indispensable.
To what a degree the same past can leave different marks - and especially admit of different interpretations.
Art begins with resistance - at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.
There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.
Not everyone can be an orphan.
Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize that tomorrow's joy is possible only if today's makes way for it; that each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the withdrawal of the preceding one.
No theory is good unless it permits, not rest, but the greatest work. No theory is good except on condition that one use it to go on beyond.
What would there be in a story of happiness? Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be told.
Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.
The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity.
In hell there is no other punishment than to begin over and over again the tasks left unfinished in your lifetime.