A limited vocabulary, but one with which you can make numerous combinations, is better than thirty thousand words that only hamper the action of the mind.

[Beauty is] that which makes us despair.

Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.

The only treaties that ought to count are those which would effect a settlement between ulterior motives.

It is a law of nature that we defend ourselves from one affection only by means of another.

A man is infinitely more complicated than his thoughts.

Interruption, incoherence, surprise are the ordinary conditions of our life. They have even become real needs for many people, whose minds are no longer fed by anything but sudden changes and constantly renewed stimuli. We can no longer bear anything that lasts. We no longer know how to make boredom bear fruit. So the whole question comes down to this: can the human mind master what the human mind has made?