Love is a scandal of the personal sort.

Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable.

[In] death at least there would be one profit; it would no longer be necessary to eat, to drink, to pay taxes, or to [offend] others; and as a man lies in his grave not one year, but hundreds and thousands of years, the profit was enormous. The life of man was, in short, a loss, and only his death a profit.

I promise to be a splendid husband, but give me a wife who, like the moon, won't in my sky every day...

All of life and human relations have become so incomprehensibly complex that, when you think about it, it becomes terrifying and your heart stands still.

My mistress has come home; at last I've seen her. Now I'm ready to die.

The happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burden in silence. Without this silence, happiness would be impossible.