Love is a striking example of how little reality means to us.

The one thing more difficult than following a regime is keeping from imposing it on others.

No exile at the South Pole or on the summit of Mont Blanc separates us more effectively from others than the practice of a hidden vice.

Those whose suffering is due to love are, as we say of certain invalids, their own physicians.

Having a body is in itself the greatest threat to the mind... The body encloses the mind in a fortress; before long the mind is besieged on all sides, and in the end the mind has to give itself up.

Our desires cut across one another, and in this confused existence it is rare for happiness to coincide with the desire that clamoured for it.

We believe we can change things according to our wishes because that's the only happy solution we can see. We don't think of what usually happens and what is also a happy solution; things don't change, but by and by our wishes change.