 You shall judge a man by his foes as well as by his friends. |
| You can't, in sound morals, condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity. It is his clear duty. |
| To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence. |
| For all that has been said of the love that certain natures (on shore) have professed for it, for all the celebrations it has been the object of in prose and song, the sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness. |
| History repeats itself, but the special call of an art which has passed away is never reproduced. It is as utterly gone out of the world as the song of a destroyed wild bird. |
| This magnificent butterfly finds a little heap of dirt and sits still on it; but man will never on his heap of mud keep still. |
| Truth of a modest sort I can promise you, and also sincerity. That complete, praiseworthy sincerity which, while it delivers one into the hands of one's enemies, is as likely as not to embroil one with one's friends. |
| The sea - this truth must be confessed - has no generosity. No display of manly qualities - courage, hardihood, endurance, faithfulness - has ever been known to touch its irresponsible consciousness of power. |
| It is not the clear-sighted who rule the world. Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm fog. |
| As to honor - you know - it's a very fine mediaeval inheritance which women never got hold of. It wasn't theirs. |
| Don't you forget what's divine in the Russian soul and that's resignation. |
| All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind. |
| Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line. |
| A modern fleet of ships does not so much make use of the sea as exploit a highway. |
