So much of life [is] a putting-off of unhappiness for another time. Nothing [is] ever lost by delay.

Innocence is a kind of insanity

The truth has never been of any real value to any human being - it is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.

The subject of a novel is not the plot. Who remembers what happened to Lucien de Rebempre in the end?

Nobody here could ever talk about a heaven on earth. Heaven remained rigidly in its proper place on the other side of death, and on this side flourished the injustices, the cruelties, the meanness that elsewhere people so cleverly hushed up. Here you could love human beings nearly as God loved them, knowing the worst: you didn't love a pose, a pretty dress, a sentiment artfully assumed.

Hatred seems to work on the same glands as love: it even produces the same actions. If we had not been taught how to interpret the story of the Passion, would we have been able to say from their actions alone whether it was the jealous Judas or the cowardly Peter who loved Christ?

So much of life [is] a putting-off of unhappiness for another time. Nothing [is] ever lost by delay.