When we have passed a certain age, the soul of the child that we were and the souls of the dead from whom we sprang come and shower upon us their riches and their spells, asking to be allowed to contribute to the new emotions which we feel and in which, erasing their former image, we recast them in an original creation.

Let a prize lower my position, if it causes me to be read; that I prefer immediately to all the honors.

But when one believes in the reality of things, making them visible by artificial means is not quite the same as feeling that they are close at hand.

It is not only by dint of lying to others, but also of lying to ourselves, that we cease to notice that we are lying.

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

And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) of which we have no inkling. And it depends on chance whether or not we come upon this object before we ourselves must die.

In theory one is aware that the earth revolves, but in practice one does not perceive it, the ground upon which one treads seems not to move, and one can live undisturbed. So it is with Time in one's life.