You can't learn the truth about a man's intentions by asking him.

Most of our faculties lie dormant because they can rely upon Habit, which knows what there is to be done and has no need of their services.

Knowing does not always allow us to prevent, but at least the things that we know, we hold them, if not in our hands, but at leastin our thoughts where we may dispose of them at our whim, which gives us the illusion of power over them.

It is desire that engenders belief and if we fail as a rule to take this into account, it is because most of the desires that create beliefs end only with our own life.

People who, not being in love themselves, feel that a clever man should only be unhappy about a person who is worth his while; which is rather like being astonished that anyone should condescend to die of cholera at the bidding of so insignificant a creature as the comma bacillus.

After a certain age, the more one becomes oneself, the more obvious one's family traits become.

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.