Love isn't actually a feeling at all--it's an illness, a certain condition of body and soul.... Usually it takes possession of someone without his permission, all of a sudden, against his will--just like cholera or a fever.

You may live a long while with some people and be on friendly terms with them and never speak openly with them from your soul.

I share no man's opinions; I have my own.

Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man's the workman in it.

Life deceives everyone except the individual who doesn't contemplate it, the individual who demands nothing from it, the individual who serenely accepts its few gifts and serenely makes the most of them.

Who among us has the strength to oppose petty egoism, those petty good feelings, pity and remorse?

Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.