I prefer granting with a good grace what I know I shan't be able to prevent.

What would there be in a story of happiness? Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be told.

How do you know that the fruit is ripe? Simply because it leaves the branch.

But can one still make resolutions when one is over forty? I live according to twenty-year-old habits.

The most gifted natures are perhaps also the most trembling.

The want of logic annoys. Too much logic bores. Life eludes logic, and everything that logic alone constructs remains artificial and forced.

I advise the young to tell themselves constantly that most often it is up to them alone.