The only paradise is paradise lost.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last.

Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.

If only for the sake of elegance, I try to remain morally pure.

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.

In a separation it is the one who is not really in love who says the more tender things.

Let us leave pretty women to men devoid of imagination.

Lies are essential to humanity. They are perhaps as important as the pursuit of pleasure and moreover are dictated by that pursuit.

Like everybody who is not in love, he thought one chose the person to be loved after endless deliberations and on the basis of particular qualities or advantages.

No exile at the South Pole or on the summit of Mont Blanc separates us more effectively from others than the practice of a hidden vice.

The time at our disposal each day is elastic; the passions we feel dilate it, those that inspire us shrink it, and habit fills it.

The world was not created once and for all time for each of us individually. There are added to it in the course of our life things of which we have never had any suspicion.

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.

We must never be afraid to go too far, for truth lies beyond.