Indeed, among the lesser auxiliaries to success in love, an absence, the declining of an invitation to dinner, an unintentional, unconscious harshness are of more service than all the cosmetics and fine clothes in the world.

There is not a woman in the world the possession of whom is as precious as that of the truths which she reveals to us by causing us to suffer.

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.

An hour is not merely an hour, it is a vase full of scents and sounds and projects and climates.

Medicine being a compendium of the successive and contradictory mistakes of medical practitioners, when we summon the wisest of them to our aid, the chances are that we may be relying on a scientific truth the error of which will be recognized in a few years time.

A little insomnia is not without its value in making us appreciate sleep, in throwing a ray of light upon that darkness.

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