When I look at my life and its secret colors, I feel like bursting into tears.

I understood, by dint of digging into my memories, that modesty helped me to shine, humility helped me to triumph and virtue to oppress.

The act of love . . . is a confession. Selfishness screams aloud, vanity shows off, or else true generosity reveals itself.

In fact, it comes to this: nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. For really to think about someone means thinking about that person every minute of the day, without letting one’s thoughts be diverted by anything- by meals, by a fly that settles on one’s cheek, by household duties, or by a sudden itch somewhere. But there are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live.

I make myself strict rules in order to correct my nature. But it is my nature that I finally obey.

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.

Integrity needs no rules.