Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.

It must be that to govern a nation you need a specific talent and that this may very well exist without general ability.

As we grow older we become more conscious of the complexity, incoherence, and unreasonableness of human beings; this indeed is the only excuse that offers for the middle-aged or elderly writer whose thoughts should more properly be turned to graver matters, occupying himself with the trivial concerns of imaginary people.

Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment.

The life force is vigorous. The delight that accompanies it counter-balances all the pains and hardships that confront men. It makes life worth living.

Men have ascribed to God imperfections that they would deplore in themselves.

The Riviera isn't only a sunny place for shady people.