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Circumstances are the rulers of the weak; they are but the instruments of the wise.

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.

A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.

My congratulations to you, sir. Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.

The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh.

Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

No, I regret nothing, all I regret is having been born, dying is such a long tiresome business I always found.

The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.