Having a body is in itself the greatest threat to the mind... The body encloses the mind in a fortress; before long the mind is besieged on all sides, and in the end the mind has to give itself up.

Let us leave pretty women to men devoid of imagination.

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.

Like everybody who is not in love, he thought one chose the person to be loved after endless deliberations and on the basis of particular qualities or advantages.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

To understand a profound thought is to have, at the moment one understands it, a profound thought oneself; and this demands some effort, a genuine descent to the heart of oneself . . . Only desire and love give us the strength to make this effort. The only books that we truly absorb are those we read with real appetite, after having worked hard to get them, so great had been our need of them.

Instead of seeking new landscapes, develop new eyes.