The memory of most men is an abandoned cemetery where lie, unsung and unhonored, the dead whom they have ceased to cherish. Any lasting grief is reproof to their neglect.

If you love life you also love the past, because it is the present as it has survived in memory." Translation by David Downie

Sickness disgusts us with death, and we wish to get well, which is a way of wishing to live. But weakness and suffering, with manifold bodily woes, soon discourage the invalid from trying to regain ground: he tires of those respites which are but snares, of that faltering strength, those ardors cut short, and that perpetual lying in wait for the next attack.

I have never seasoned a truth with the sauce of a lie in order to digest it more easily

Passion such as hers is all consent, asking little in return. I had merely to enter a room where she was to see her face take on that peaceful expression of one who is resting in bed. If I touched her, I had the impression that all the blood in her veins was turning to honey.

Every hour has its immediate duty, its special injunction which dominates all others.

Our true birthplace is that in which we cast for the first time an intelligent eye on ourselves. My first homelands were my books.