...the nose is generally the organ in which stupidity is most readily displayed.

Any mental activity is easy if it need not be subjected to reality.

We feel in one world, we think and name in another. Between the two we can set up a system of references, but we cannot fill in the gap.

So we don't believe that life is beautiful because we don't recall it but if we get a whiff of a long-forgotten smell we are suddenly intoxicated and similarly we think we no longer love the dead because we don't remember them but if by chance we come across an old glove we burst into tears.

Desire makes everything blossom; possession makes everything wither and fade.

The only possible paradises are those we have lost

We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.