The constant demands of the heart and the belly can allow man only an incidental indulgence in the pleasures of the eye and the understanding.

... so in love the heart surrenders itself entirely to the one being that has known how to touch it. That being is not selected; it is recognised and obeyed.

The profoundest affinities are those most readily felt, and though a thousand later considerations may overlay and override them, they remain a background and standard for all happiness. If we trace them out we succeed.

The loftiest edifices need the deepest foundations.

It would hardly be possible to exaggerate man's wretchedness if it were not so easy to overestimate his sensibility

If clearness about things produces a fundamental despair, a fundamental despair in turn produces a remarkable clearness or even playfulness about ordinary matters.

There is nothing sacred about convention; there is nothing sacred about primitive passions or whims; but the fact that a convention exists indicates that a way of living has been devised capable of maintaining itself.