Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent.

Could we perfect human nature, we might also expect a perfect state of things.

Sometimes I don't understand how another can love her, is allowed to love her, since I love her so completely myself, so intensely, so fully, grasp nothing, know nothing, have nothing but her!

The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace.

Passions are defects or virtues in the highest power.

Happy the man who early learns the wide chasm that lies between his wishes and his powers.

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.