I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning.

When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.

You are like my little dog; when people see you, they know I am nearby.

All men are liable to error; and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it.

Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay.

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.

My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues.

The true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is watching.

People think I'm a miserable sod but it's only because I get asked such bloody miserable questions.

Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.

Humility is attentive patience.

Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands

How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.

Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.

Once you label me you negate me.

Delay always breeds danger. To protract a great design is often to ruin it.

I do not argue with obstinate men. I act in spite of them.

Anything that makes weak - physically, intellectually and spiritually, reject it as poison.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.