We can talk frankly about our defects only to those who recognise our qualities.

A friend loves you for your intelligence, a mistress for your charm, but your family's love is unreasoning; you were born into it and are of its flesh and blood. Nevertheless it can irritate you more than any group of people in the world.

Two human beings anchored to one another are like two ships shaken by waves; their carcases collide with one another and creak.

Modesty and unselfishness - these are the virtues which men praise - and pass by.

Old age is far more than white hair, wrinkles, the feeling that it is too late and the game finished, that the stage belongs to the rising generations. The true evil is not the weakening of the body, but the indifference of the soul.

All of us, from time to time, need a plunge into freedom and novelty, after which routine and discipline will seem delightful by contrast.

We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity - romantic love and gunpowder.