Who learns most from a good book is the author.
The novel is born of disillusionment; the poem, of despair.
To sin offers repentance and forgiveness; not to sin offers only punishment.
We say of an animal that it is intelligent, and we say the same thing of a woman; but in neither case is it usually appropriate, clearly for very different reasons.
To be young is to live in the hope of escaping youth; to be old, in the despair of having succeeded.
I fear only that which I love, says man, according to Montaigne. Woman replies: I love only that which I fear.