Love born in the brain is more spirited, doubtless, than true love, but it has only flashes of enthusiasm; it knows itself too well, it criticizes itself incessantly; so far from banishing thought, it is itself reared only upon a structure of thought.

When intimacy followed love in Italy there were no longer any vain pretensions between two lovers.

God's only excuse is that he does not exist.

...one of the traits of genius is not to drag its thought through the rut worn by vulgar minds.

A man who is half an idiot, but who keeps a sharp lookout and acts prudently all his life, often enjoys the pleasure of triumphing over men of more imagination than he

The more one pleases everybody, the less one pleases profoundly.

In love, unlike most other passions, the recollection of what you have had and lost is always better than what you can hope for in the future.