I know that you don't believe it, but indeed, life will bring you through. You will live it down in time. What you need now is fresh air, fresh air, fresh air!

For a woman, all resurrection, all salvation, from whatever perdition, lies in love; in fact, it is her only way to it.

And, indeed, I will at this point ask an idle question on my own account: which is better — cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?

Often a man endures for several years, submits and suffers the cruellest punishments, and then suddenly breaks out over some minute trifle, almost nothing at all.

Let us not forget that the reasons for human actions are usually incalculably more complex and diverse than we tend to explain them later, and are seldom clearly manifest.

If the spirit has passed through a great many sensations, possibly it can no longer be sated with them, but grows more excited, and demands more sensations, and stronger and stronger ones, until at length it falls exhausted.

If you want to overcome the whole world, overcome yourself.