There are only two true things: intelligent religion and youthful love, which is to say the future and the present. The rest is not worth the trouble - François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand

One is not, my dear sir, a superior man merely because one sees the world in an odious light. One only hates mankind and life itself through failing to look deeply enough.

In living literature no person is a competent judge but of works written in his own language. I have expressed my opinion concerning a number of English writers; it is very possible that I may be mistaken, that my admiration and my censure may be equally misplaced, and that my conclusions may appear impertinent and ridiculous on the other side of the Channel.

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between her work and her play; her labor and her leisure; her mind and her body; her education and her recreation. She hardly knows which is which. She simply pursues her vision of excellence through whatever she is doing, and leaves others to determine if she is working or playing. To herself, she always appears to be doing both.