I drank a second mouthful in which I find nothing more than in the first, then a third which gives me rather less than the second. It is time to stop; the potion is losing its magic.

What a profound significance small things assume when the woman we love conceals them from us.

Most of our faculties lie dormant because they can rely upon Habit, which knows what there is to be done and has no need of their services.

Human altruism which is not egoism, is sterile.

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

And indeed when we are no longer in love with women whom we meet after many years, is there not the abyss of death between them and ourselves, just as much as if they were no longer of this world, since the fact that we are no longer in love makes the people that they were or the person that we were then as good as dead?

Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have retained of them.