"I've always thought respectable people scoundrels, and I look anxiously at my face every morning for signs of my becoming a scoundrel."

"Too little liberty brings stagnation and too much brings chaos."

"'Change' is scientific, 'progress' is ethical; change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy."

"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence."

"The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists - that is why they invented hell."

"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge."

"Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life."

"It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between."

"It takes far less courage to kill yourself than it takes to make yourself wake up one more time. It is harder to stay where you are than to get out."

"It is the loving, not the loved, woman who feels loveable."

"The mind ought sometimes to be diverted that it may return the better to thinking."

"The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be constantly wound up."