Every act of will is an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire limitation. In that sense, every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you choose anything, you reject everything else.

Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.

The pessimists believe that the cosmos is a clock that is running down; the progressives believe it is a clock that they themselves are winding up. But I happen to believe that the world is what we choose to make it, and that we are what we choose to make ourselves; and that our renascence or our ruin will alike, ultimately and equally, testify with a trumpet to our liberty.- The Illustrated London News, July 10, 1920 Issue.

Poets do not go mad, but chess players do.