People who feel themselves to be exiles in this world are mightily inclined to believe themselves citizens of another.

To turn events into ideas is the function of literature.

Emotion is primarily about nothing and much of it remains about nothing to the end.

It is pathetic to observe how lowly the motives are that religion, even the highest, attributes to the deity... To be given the best morsel, to be remembered, to be praised, to be obeyed blindly and punctiliously - these have been thought points of honor with the gods.

The habit of looking for beauty in everything makes us notice the shortcomings of things, our sense, hungry for complete satisfaction, misses the perfection it demands.

love make us poets, and the approach of death should make us philosophers.

To understand oneself is the classic form of consolation; to elude oneself is the romantic.