“The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.”

Men and women are not born inconstant: they are made so by their early amorous experiences.

A contemptuous indifference turns into an enemy a woman who, well treated, might have been an angel.

The true evil is not the weakening of the body, but the indifference of the soul.

The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one’s opinion but rather to know it.

There are certain persons for whom pure Truth is a poison.

People are what you make them. A scornful look turns into a complete fool a man of average intelligence.

Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold.

No one can be profoundly original who does not avoid eccentricity.

If you value a man’s regard, strive with him. As to liking, you like your newspaper – and despise it.

Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.

We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity – romantic love and gunpowder.

Modesty and unselfishness – these are the virtues which men praise – and pass by.

If men could regard the events of their own lives with more open minds, they would frequently discover that they did not really desire the things they failed to obtain.

In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.

A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.

The really great novel tends to be the exact negative of its author’s life.

First of all a natural talent is required; for when Nature opposes, everything else is in vain; but when Nature leads the way to what is most excellent, instruction in the art takes place.

The flavour of a fish which comes out of the sea at Acre is not similar to the flavour of a fish which comes out of the sea in Spain.

My first child is going to be the oldest sibling to the next kid, and that may change with each and every year. I’m looking forward to how one baby influences the other, and to my family as a whole, to every single chapter.

Our first and most pressing problem is how to do away with warfare as a method of solving conflicts between national groups within a society who have different views about how the society is to run.

Bomber’ was the first song I wrote about war.

Christmas to a child is the first terrible proof that to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.

Prayer enables us first inwardly to overcome the enemy and then outwardly to deal with him.

Never did eye see the sun unless it had first become sun-like, and never can the soul have vision of the First Beauty unless itself be beautiful.