What we love intensely or for a long time we are likely to bring within the citadel, and to assert as part of oneself.

Real worth requires no interpreter: its everyday deeds form its emblem.

In order to forgive reason for the evil it has wrought on the majority of men, we must imagine for ourselves what man would be without his reason. 'Tis a necessary evil.

What one knows best is ... what one has learned not from books but as a result of books, through the reflections to which they have given rise.

The best philosophical attitude to adopt towards the world is a union of the sarcasm of gaiety with the indulgence of contempt.

Sometimes apparent resemblance of character will bring two men together and for a certain time unite them. But their mistake gradually becomes evident, and they are astonished to find themselves not only far apart, but even repelled, in some sort, at all their points of contact.

In love, everything is true, everything is false; it is the one subject on which one cannot express an absurdity.