Marriage is an arrangement by which two people start by getting the best out of each other and often end by getting the worst.

Wisdom is keeping a sense of fallibility of all our views and opinions.

Everyone alters and is altered by everyone else. We are all the time taking in portions of one another or else reacting against them, and by these involuntary acquisitions and repulsions modifying our natures.

We confess our bad qualities to others out of fear of appearing naive or ridiculous by not being aware of them.

Words are as recalcitrant as circus animals, and the unskilled trainer can crack his whip at them in vain.

One road to happiness is to cultivate curiosity about everything. Not only about people but about subjects, not only about the arts but about history and foreign customs. Not only about countries and cities, but about plants and animals. Not only about lichened rocks and curious markings on the bark of trees, but about stars and atoms. Not only about your friends but about that strange labyrinth we inhabit which we call ourselves. Then, if we do that, we will never suffer a moment's boredom.

A bad memory is the mother of invention.