If we meet someone who owes us a debt of gratitude, we remember the fact at once. How often we can meet someone to whom we owe a debt of gratitude without thinking about it at all!

Man... knows only when he is satisfied and when he suffers, and only his sufferings and his satisfactions instruct him concerning himself, teach him what to seek and what to avoid. For the rest, man is a confused creature; he knows not whence he comes or whither he goes, he knows little of the world, and above all, he knows little of himself.

I have so much in me, and the feeling for her absorbs it all; I have so much, and without her it all comes to nothing.

I hate all explanations; they who make them deceive either themselves or the other party,-generally both.

In politics people throw themselves, as on a sickbed, from one side to the other in the belief they will lie more comfortably.

Mankind? That is an abstraction. There have always been and always will be only individuals.

Our senses don't deceive us: our judgment does