Nature reserves the right to inflict upon her children the most terrifying jests.

The comic spirit is given to us in order that we may analyze, weigh, and clarify things in us which nettle us, or which we are outgrowing, or trying to reshape

She had never realized any love save love as passion. Such love, though it expends itself in generosity and thoughtfulness, though it give birth to visions and to great poetry, remains among the sharpest expressions of self-interest. Not until it has passed though a long servitude, though its own self-hatred, though mockery, though great doubts, can it take its place among the loyalties. Many who have spent a lifetime in it can tell us less of love than the child that lost a dog yesterday.

I am my own judge of what truths I shall tell. The truth can do just as much harm as a lie.

I rose by sheer military ability to the rank of corporal.

[Dona Maria] saw that the people of this world moved about in an armor of egotism, drunk with self-gazing, athirst for compliments, hearing little of what was said to them, unmoved by the accidents that befell their closest friends, in dread of all appeals that might interrupt their long communion with their own desires.

There is no creation without faith and hope. There is no faith and hope that does not express itself in creation.