Each of us must pay for the slightest damage he inflicts upon a universe created for indifference and stagnation, sooner or later, he will regret not having left it intact.

Melancholy redeems this universe, and yet it is melancholy that separates us from it.

For you who no longer possess it, freedom is everything, for us who do, it is merely an illusion.

No one can keep his griefs in their prime; they use themselves up.

Nostalgia, more than anything, gives us the shudder of our own imperfection. This is why with Chopin we feel so little like gods.

Each of us is born with a share of purity, predestined to be corrupted by our commerce with mankind, by that sin against solitude.

A distant enemy is always preferable to one at the gate.