“Nothing is so silly as the expression of a man who is being complimented.”

Trust those who seek the truth but doubt those who say they have found it.

The funny thing about love is that it must continually grow or it will diminish.

What would a narrative of happiness be like? All that can be described is what prepares it, and then what destroys it.

Envying another man’s happiness is madness; you wouldn’t know what to do with it if you had it.

Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.

Sin is whatever obscures the soul.

I do not love men: I love what devours them.

A man thinks he owns things, and it is he who is owned.

Welcome everything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else.

To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one’s freedom.

The capacity to get free is nothing; the capacity to be free is the task.

Know that joy is rarer, more difficult, and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all-important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation.

Society knows perfectly well how to kill a man and has methods more subtle than death.

Complete possession is proved only by giving. All you are unable to give possesses you.

So long as we live among men, let us cherish humanity.

Trust those who seek the truth but doubt those who say they have found it.

She can kill with her smile, she can wound with her eyes.

You are so beautiful to me.

She had been born with a face that would let her get away, he saw that face and he lost all control.

She’s got a smile that heals me.

Most people are such fools that it is really no great compliment to say that someone is above the average.

Some people pay a compliment as if they expected a receipt.

Some folks pay a compliment like they went down in their pocket for it.

Set screamed something in Ancient Egyptian. I was fairly sure it wasn’t a compliment. “I will rend your limbs from their sockets!” he shouted. “I will—” “Die?” Carter suggested.