The heart does not lie.

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.

The character we exhibit in the latter half of our life need not necessarily be, though it often is, our original character, developed further, dried up, exaggerated, or diminished. It can be its exact opposite, like a suit worn inside out.

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

In love, happiness is an abnormal state.

Each reader reads only what is already within himself. The book is only a sort of optical instrument which the writer offers to the reader to enable the latter to discover in himself what he would not have found but for the aid of the book.

People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. It is as though they were traveling abroad.