In theory one is aware that the earth revolves, but in practice one does not perceive it, the ground upon which one treads seems not to move, and one can live undisturbed. So it is with Time in one's life.

We become moral when we are unhappy.

Le veritable voyage de decouverte ne consiste pas a chercher de nouveaux paysages, mais a avoir de nouveaux yeux. (The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.)

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.

This labour of the artist to discover a means of apprehending beneath matter and experience, beneath words, something different from their appearance, is of an exactly contrary nature to the operation in which pride, passion, intelligence and habit are constantly engaged within us when we spend our lives without self-communion, accumulating as though to hide our true impressions, the terminology for practical ends which we falsely call life.

People don't know when they are happy. They're never so unhappy as they think they are.

We can only be faithful to what we remember, and we remember only what we have known.