Of course politics is an interesting and engrossing thing. It offers no immutable laws, nearly always prevaricates, but as far asblather and sharpening the mind go, it provides inexhaustible material.
And it is the way with us that you may express disapproval of the sun or the moon, or anything you like, but God preserve you from touching the Liberals! Heaven forbid!
Useless pursuits and conversations always about the same things absorb the better part of one's time, the better part of one's strength, and in the end there is left a life grovelling and curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting away from it—just as though one were in a madhouse or prison.
In order to cultivate yourself and to drop no lower than the level of the milieu in which you have landed, it is not enough to read Pickwick and memorize a monologue from Faust... You need to work continually day and night, to read ceaselessly, to study, to exercise your will... Each hour is precious.
All of life and human relations have become so incomprehensibly complex that, when you think about it, it becomes terrifying and your heart stands still.
Formerly, when I would feel a desire to understand someone, or myself, I would take into consideration not actions, in which everything is relative, but wishes. Tell me what you want and I'll tell you who you are.
When you want to touch the reader's heart, try to be colder. It gives their grief as it were, a background, against which it stands out in greater relief.
A litterateur is not a confectioner, not a dealer in cosmetics, not an entertainer. . . . He is just like an ordinary reporter. What would you say if a newspaper reporter, because of his fastidiousness or from a wish to give pleasure to his readers, were to describe only honest mayors, high-minded ladies, and virtuous railroad contractors.