There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope. But most of us are apt to settle within ourselves that the man who blocks our way is odious, and not to mind causing him a little of the disgust which his personality excites in ourselves.
Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly.
Our passions do not live apart in locked chambers but dress in their small wardrobe of notions, bring their provisions to a common table and mess together, feeding out of the common store according to their appetite. Pain is no evil unless it conquers us. The best augury of a man's success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world. Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving in words evidence of the fact. Blows are sarcasm's turned stupid.