Often it is just lack of imagination that keeps a man from suffering very much.

Everybody calls "clear" those ideas which have the same degree of confusion as his own.

For although we know that the years pass, that youth gives way to old age, that fortunes and thrones crumble (even the most solid among them) and that fame is transitory, the manner in which—by means of a sort of snapshot—we take cognisance of this moving universe whirled along by Time, has the contrary effect of immobilising it.

Any mental activity is easy if it need not be subjected to reality.

The stellar universe is not so difficult to understand as the real actions of other people, especially of the people with whom we are in love.

Memory nourishes the heart, and grief abates.

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.