For although we know that the years pass, that youth gives way to old age, that fortunes and thrones crumble (even the most solid among them) and that fame is transitory, the manner in which—by means of a sort of snapshot—we take cognisance of this moving universe whirled along by Time, has the contrary effect of immobilising it.

I do my intellectual work inside myself, and once I am with my fellow creatures it is more or less a matter of indifference to me whether or not they are intelligent as long as they are kind, sincere, etc.

Words do not change their meanings so drastically in the course of centuries as, in our minds, names do in the course of a year or two.

Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.

There is not a woman in the world the possession of whom is as precious as that of the truths which she reveals to us by causing us to suffer.

Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.

One must never miss an opportunity of quoting things by others which are always more interesting than those one thinks up oneself.