“I don’t believe that happiness is possible, but I think tranquility is.”

What is beautiful is moral, that is all there is to it.

Life must be a constant education; one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.

The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close yourself up in Art and to count for nothing all the rest.

There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it.

It’s hard to communicate anything exactly and that’s why perfect relationships between people are difficult to find.

I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.

For him the universe did not extend beyond the circumference of her petticoat.

One can be the master of what one does, but never of what one feels.

The most important thing in the world is to hold your soul aloft.

Through small apertures we glimpse abysses whose sombre depths turn us faint. And yet over the whole there hovers an extraordinary tenderness.

Stupidity consists in wanting to reach conclusions. We are a thread, and we want to know the whole cloth.

Writing history is like drinking an ocean and pissing a cupful.

I have dreamed much and have done very little.

She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris.

The heart, like the stomach, wants a varied diet.

You must write for yourself, above all. That is your only hope of creating something beautiful.

I’m enjoying the most perfect tranquillity, free from all worries, and in consequence would like to stay this way forever, in a peaceful corner of the countryside like this.

Every morning prepare your soul for a tranquil day.

Yet now as we grow older why must we be frightened of being tranquil?

Inside each one of us is a beautiful flower garden. This is the garden of the soul. With each lesson we learn, the garden grows. As we learn together, our individual gardens form a tranquil paradise.

As evacuation eases the body, so occasional ejectment of passion seems to appease the agonies of the soul, and dispose to tranquility the agitations of the heart.

I love tranquil solitude.

I love tranquil solitude And such society As is quiet, wise, and good.

You have come to a stage where you almost have to work on yourself. You know, on finding some tranquility with which to respond to these things, because I realize that the biggest risk that many of us run is beginning to get inured to the horrors.