I have never lived on principles. When I have had to act, I never first asked myself on what principles I was going to act, but I went at it and did what I thought fit. I have often reproached myself for my want of principle.
A regard for fame becomes a man more towards the exit than at his entrance into life.
Exclude the need for appearances: what counts is not appearances; the value of life does not depend on the approval of others or on success, but on what we have inside us.
Do you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
Sometimes, things may not go your way, but the effort should be there every single night.
When you recollect something which belonged in an earlier chapter, do not go back, but jam it in where you are.
Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.
However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do want society.
If consciousness is, as some inhuman thinker has said, nothing more than a flash of light between two eternities of darkness, then there is nothing more execrable than existence.