We passionately long that there may be another life in which we shall be similar to what we are here below. But we do not pause to reflect that, even without waiting for that other life, in this life, after a few years we are unfaithful to what we have been, to what we wished to remain immortally.

It is the tragedy of other people that they are to us merely showcases for the very perishable collections of our own mind.

Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.

The only true voyage of discovery, . . . would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes.

It is a mistake to speak of a bad choice in love, since, as soon as a choice exists, it can only be bad.

... we made much less happy by the kindness of a great writer, which strictly speaking we find only in his books, than we suffer from the hostility of a woman whom we have not chosen for her intelligence, but whom we cannot stop ourselves from loving.

Things don't change, but by and by our wishes change.