The denigration of those we love always detaches us from them in some degree. Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers.

But the disparaging of those we love always alienates us from them to some extent. We must not touch our idols; the gilt comes off in our hands.

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.

The citadel of Machaerus rose east of the Dead Sea on a basalt Peak shaped like a cone, girdled by four deep valleys; two about its sides, one in front, and the fourth behind.

The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy.

In the dark room a cloud of yellow dust flew from beneath the tool like a scatter of sparks from under the hooves of a galloping horse. The twin wheels turned and hummed. Binet was smiling, his chin down, his nostrils distended. He seemed lost in the kind of happiness which, as a rule, accompanies only those mediocre occupations that tickle the intelligence with easy difficulties, and satisfy it with a sense of achievement beyond which there is nothing left for dreams to feed on.

That man has missed something who has never left a brothel at sunrise feeling like throwing himself into the river out of pure disgust.