Distance... is like futurity. A dim vastness is spread before our souls; the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of our vision... But alas! when we have attained our object, when the distant 'there' becomes the present 'here,' all is changed; we are as poor and circumscribed as ever, and our souls still languish for unattainable happiness.

Flowers are the beautiful hieroglyphics of nature with which she indicates how much she loves us.

Everyone is deceived in his hopes, cheated in his expectations.

Is it not enough that we cannot make one another happy, must we also rob one another of the pleasures that any heart may permit itself now and then? And name me a person who in a bad mood will be decent enough to hide it, to bear it alone, without destroying the joy around him. Is it not rather an inner dissatisfaction with our own unworthiness, a dislike of ourselves that is always associated with envy aggravated by foolish conceit? We see people happy and not made happy by us, and that is unbearable.

Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.

There are people who make no mistakes because they never wish to do anything worth doing.

We are never further from what we wish than when we believe that we have what we wished for.