True contentment is not having everything, but in being satisfied with everything you have.

The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.

Better the rule of One, whom all obey, than to let clamorous demagogues betray our freedom with the kiss of anarchy.

The tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but self denial.

The great events of life often leave one unmoved; they pass out of consciousness, and, when thinks of them, become unreal. Even the scarlet flowers of passion seem to grow in the same meadow as the poppies of oblivion. We reject the burden of their memory, and have anodynes against them. But the little things, the things of no moment, remain with us. In some tiny ivory cell the brain stores the most delicate, and the most fleeting impressions.

It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style.

If God wished to punish us, all he would need to do would be to answer our prayers.