We are at times too ready to believe that the present is the only possible state of things.

We are less justified in saying that the thinking life of humanity is a miraculous perfectioning of animal and physical life than that it is an imperfection in the organization of spiritual life as rudimentary as the communal existence of protozoa in colonies.

You know Balbec so well - do you have friends in the area?' I have friends wherever there are companies of trees, wounded but not vanquished, which huddle together with touching obstinacy to implore an inclement and pitiless sky.' That is not what I meant,' interrupted my father, as obstinate as the trees and as pitiless as the sky.

We become moral when we are unhappy.

In love, happiness is an abnormal state.

Everything great in the world comes from neurotics. They alone have founded our religions and composed our masterpieces.

We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes.