Reason may cure illusions, but not suffering.

Few persons enjoy real liberty; we are all slaves to ideas or habits.

Is is true that dictators never dream because they can change their smallest fantasies into realities if they want to?

The most despairing songs are the most beautiful, and I know some immortal ones that are pure tears.

Man is a pupil, pain is his teacher.

I see that you believe in love such as the poets and romancers have represented... The poets represent love as the sculptors design beauty, as the musicians create melody; that is to say, endowed with an exquisite nervous organization, they gather up with discerning ardor the purest elements of life, the most beautiful lines of matter, and the most harmonious voices of nature.... To try to find in real life such love as this, eternal and absolute, is the same thing as to seek on the public squares such a woman as Venus or to expect nightingales to sing the symphonies of Beethoven.

The most disagreeable thing that your worst enemy says to your face does not approach what your best friends say behind your back.