Our intonations contain our philosophy of life, what each of us is constantly telling himself about things.

Time passes, and little by little everything that we have spoken in falsehood becomes true.

There is no man, however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory.

A powerful idea communicates some of its strength to him who challenges it.

We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes.

Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.

If only for the sake of elegance, I try to remain morally pure.

People can have many different kinds of pleasure. The real one is that for which they will forsake the others.

The only paradise is paradise lost.

We become moral when we are unhappy.

It is not because other people are dead that our affection for them grows faint, it is because we ourselves are dying.

Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.

What a profound significance small things assume when the woman we love conceals them from us.

Habit is a second nature which prevents us from knowing the first, of which it has neither the cruelties nor the enchantments.

In a separation it is the one who is not really in love who says the more tender things.

Lies are essential to humanity. They are perhaps as important as the pursuit of pleasure and moreover are dictated by that pursuit.

We must never be afraid to go too far, for truth lies beyond.

Words do not change their meanings so drastically in the course of centuries as, in our minds, names do in the course of a year or two.

No exile at the South Pole or on the summit of Mont Blanc separates us more effectively from others than the practice of a hidden vice.

People wish to learn to swim and at the same time to keep one foot on the ground.