“It has been said that beauty is a promise of happiness. Conversely, the possibility of pleasure can be a beginning of beauty.”

Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.

It is not because other people are dead that our affection for them grows faint, it is because we ourselves are dying.

We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.

To write that essential book, a great writer does not need to invent it but merely to translate it, since it already exists in each one of us. The duty and task of a writer are those of translator.

Only by art can we get outside ourselves, instead of seeing only one world, our own, we see it under multiple forms.

Just as those who practice the same profession recognize each other instinctively, so do those who practice the same vice.

Desire makes everything blossom; possession makes everything wither and fade.

People wish to learn to swim and at the same time to keep one foot on the ground.

It is often hard to bear the tears that we ourselves have caused.

The bonds that unite another person to our self exist only in our mind.

If we are to make reality endurable, we must all nourish a fantasy or two.

We think and name in one world, we live and feel in another.

Time passes, and little by little everything that we have spoken in falsehood becomes true.

When I am not too sad to listen, music is my consolation.

The bonds that unite us to another human being are sanctified when he or she adopts the same point of view as ourselves in judging one of our imperfections.

We live not alone but chained to a creature of a different kingdom: our body.

Nature, like a loving mother, is ever trying to keep land and sea, mountain and valley, each in its place, to hush the angry winds and waves, balance the extremes of heat and cold, of rain and drought, that peace, harmony and beauty may reign supreme.

The moon can never breathe, but it can take our breath away with the beauty of its cold, arid orb.

You don’t need a sad soul to feel the beauty of a dead grave, Just stay with the pale moon when darkness wants the night to be brave.

Beauty is not caused. It is.

The human soul needs beauty more than bread.

True beauty dwells in deep retreats, Till heart with heart in concord beats, and the lover is beloved.

I gave my beauty and my youth to men. I am going to give my wisdom and experience to animals.

There’s a lot of beauty in the world, so go hang out and go be a part of the solution rather than the problem.