Now are the woods all black, But still the sky is blue.

Illness is the most heeded of doctors: to goodness and wisdom we only make promises; pain we obey.

The time at our disposal each day is elastic; the passions we feel dilate it, those that inspire us shrink it, and habit fills it.

A man of letters, merely by reading a phrase, can estimate exactly the literary merit of its author.

For women who do not love us, as for the "disappeared", knowing that we no longer have any hope does not prevent us form continuing to wait. We live on our guard, on watch; women whose son has gone asea on a dangerous exploration imagine at any minute, although it has long been certain that he has perished, that he will enter, miraculously saved, and healthy.

The loss of a sense adds as much beauty to the world as its acquisition.

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