💬 Quotes

"Each man had only one genuine vocation—to find the way to himself."

"You must find your own dream, then the way becomes easy. But there is no dream that lasts forever, each one is followed by a new one, and one should not cling to any."

"Everything, even the most evil, was part of the divine, and the whole world was a mixture of God and the Devil."

"I wanted only to try to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?"

"The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world."

"It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is."

"Every man has a destiny waiting for him, a destiny he must fulfill; there is no escaping it."

"You must find your own dream, then the way becomes easy. But there is no dream that lasts forever, each dream is followed by a new one, and one should not cling to any particular one."

"He who wants to be born must first destroy a world. The idol is broken. The god demands sacrifice."

"I carry my adornments on my soul. I do not dress up like a popinjay, but though I lack the elegance of a fop, I am more carefully dressed: I am clean in my integrity."

"But what I truly am—that is another thing. I have a certain sort of wit, a sort of charm, that I have kept for you alone. I have given you my soul, and you—you have only seen the mask."

"To sing, to laugh, to dream, to walk in my own way and be alone, free, with an eye to see things as they are, a voice that rattles when I choose to speak; to wear my hat awry just as I please!"

"My greatest battles are fought in the silence of my own heart, where no one sees the wounds and no one hears the cries."

"And what should I do? Seek some powerful protector, take him for a patron, and like an obscure creeper mend its way to tree-trunk, lick the bark, and gain by flattery what I could not gain by force?"

"Whatever happens, one thing remains, which I shall carry with me unstained... my white plume."

"My life is a shadow play. I am the one who prompted the lines for others to speak, while I stood in the darkness, waiting for the applause that was never meant for me."

"I have decided to be admirable in everything. To be everything to everyone—and to myself nothing."

"But one does not fight with the hope of winning! No, no, it is much finer to fight when it is certain that one will lose!"

"I have my panache. It is my white plume, untarnished and unbowed, which I carry with me even to the threshold of death."

"You love him for his beauty, and he loves you for your wit; but beneath the masks we wear, we are all just searching for a soul that understands the silence between the words."