“Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.”

“The person who reads too much and uses his brain too little will fall into lazy habits of thinking..”

“A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.”

“Organized people are just too lazy to go looking for what they want.”

“Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot”

“There is far too great a disproportion between what one is and what others think one is, or at least what they say they think one is.”

“Do not laugh at me for writing you without having anything sensible to say. But I am so enraged by the base manner in which the public is presently daring to concern itself with you that I absolutely must give vent to this feeling. I am impelled to tell you how much I have come to admire your intellect, your drive, and your honesty, and that I consider myself lucky to have made your personal acquaintance in Brussels. Anyone who does not number among these reptiles is certainly happy, now as before, that we have such personages among us as you, and Langevin too, real people with whom one feels privileged to be in contact. If the rabble continues to occupy itself with you, then simply don't read that hogwash, but rather leave it to the reptile for whom it has been fabricated.”