“Envying another man's happiness is madness; you wouldn't know what to do with it if you had it.”

“Do not do what someone else could do as well as you. Do not say, do not write what someone else could say, could write as well as you. Care for nothing in yourself but what you feel exists nowhere else. And, out of yourself create, impatiently or patiently, the most irreplaceable of beings.”

“What would a narrative of happiness be like? All that can be described is what prepares it, and then what destroys it.”

“The loveliest creations of men are persistently painful. What would be the description of happiness?”

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”

“The truth is that as soon as we are no longer obliged to earn our living, we no longer know what to do with our life and recklessly squander it.”

“Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.”