It is not what things are objectively and in themselves, but what they are for us, in our way of looking at them, that makes us happy or the reverse.

A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age if it only permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner; nor with his fate if the corner granted him allows of his following his vocation without having to think about other people.

The first rule for a good style is to have something to say; in fact, this in itself is almost enough.

If a relationship is perfectly natural there will be a complete fusion of the happiness of both of you-owing to fellow-feeling and various other laws which govern our natures, this is, quite simply, the greatest happiness that can exist.

Were an Asiatic to ask me for a definition of Europe, I should be forced to answer him: It is that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible delusion that man was created out of nothing, and that his present birth is his first entrance into life.

The heavy armor becomes the light dress of childhood; the pain is brief, the joy unending.

It's the niceties that make the difference fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards.