“To have a solid foundation of skepticism, -that is to say, the faculty of changing at any moment, of turning back, of facing successively the metamorphoses of life.”

“Abstractions do us much harm by impelling us to the quest of the absolute in all things. Joy does not exist, but there are joys: and these joys may not be folly felt unless they are detached from n...”

“The greater part of a men who speak ill of women are speaking of a certain woman.”

“It was an accident that has endowed man with intelligence. He has made use of it: he invented stupidity.”

“Intelligence is perhaps but a malady, -a beautiful malady; the oysters's pearl.”

“And there is neither beginning nor end, nor past nor future; there is only a present, at the same time static and ephemeral, multiple and absolute. It is the vital ocean in which we all share, acco...”

“A human being in this aged nation of ours is a very wonderful whole, the slow creation of long interchanging influences; and charm is a result of two such wholes, the one loving and the one loved.”

“The more one judges, the less one loves.”

“[N]one of us drinks the chalice of our existence to the last drop. None of us is fully obedient. Each of us falls short of the human nature entrusted to us.”

“If I paint a wild horse, you might not see the horse... but surely you will see the wildness!”

“He who looks through an open window sees fewer things than he who looks through a closed window.”

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight and no vision.”