“You are not very good if you are not better than your best friends imagine you to be.”

“He alone is an acute observer, who can observe minutely without being observed.”

“The prudent see only the difficulties, the bold only the advantages, of a great enterprise; the hero sees both; diminishes the former and makes the latter preponderate, and so conquers.”

“You call me a misanthrope because I avoid society. You err; I love society. Yet in order not to hate people, I must avoid their company.”

“Your working assumption, when you meet a homophobe, should be that they are gay.”

“I respect you as a person too much to respect your ridiculous beliefs.”

“Hold your powers together for something good and let everything go that is for you without result and is not suited to you.”