Habit is a second nature which prevents us from knowing the first, of which it has neither the cruelties nor the enchantments.

The bonds between ourselves and another person exists only in our minds. Memory as it grows fainter loosens them, and notwithstanding the illusion by which we want to be duped and which, out of love, friendship, politeness, deference, duty, we dupe other people, we exist alone. Man is the creature who cannot escape from himself, who knows other people only in himself, and when he asserts the contrary, he is lying.

Physical love, so unjustly decried, forces everyone to manifest even the smallest bits of kindness he possesses, of selflessness,that they shine in the eyes of all who surround him.

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.

Masterpieces are no more than the shipwrecked flotsam of great minds.

Even in the most insignificant details of our daily life, none of us can be said to constitute a material whole, which is identical for everyone, and need only be turned up like a page in an account-book or the record of a will; our social personality is created by the thoughts of other people.

We become moral when we are unhappy.