“No temptation can ever be measured by the value of its object.”

A pretty little collection of weaknesses and a terror of spiders are our indispensable stock-in-trade with the men.

On this narrow planet, we have only the choice between two unknown worlds. One of them tempts us – ah! what a dream, to live in that! – the other stifles us at the first breath.

Never touch a butterfly’s wing with your finger.

Books, books, books. It was not that I read so much. I read and re-read the same ones. But all of them were necessary to me. Their presence, their smell, the letters of their titles, and the texture of their leather bindings.

One keeps forgetting old age up to the very brink of the grave.

As for an authentic villain, the real thing, the absolute, the artist, one rarely meets him even once in a lifetime. The ordinary bad hat is always in part a decent fellow.

The faults of husbands are often caused by the excess virtues of their wives.

Be happy. It’s one way of being wise.

Total absence of humor renders life impossible.

The day after that wedding night I found that a distance of a thousand miles, abyss and discovery and irremediable metamorphosis, separated me from the day before.

The true traveler is he who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time.

Look for a long time at what pleases you, and a longer time at what pains you.

It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.

Smokers, male and female, inject and excuse idleness in their lives every time they light a cigarette.

Jealousy is not at all low, but it catches us humbled and bowed down, at first sight.

There are connoisseurs of blue just as there are connoisseurs of wine.

Measure your growth in grace by your sensitiveness to sin.

Measured against eternity, our time on earth is just a blink of an eye, but the consequences of it will last forever.

Success is not measured by what you accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds.

While we measure our own success in terms of our personal comfort and security, the universe measures our success by how much we have learned.

Man is manifestly not the measure of all things. This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name.

Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart.

Humility is to make a right estimate of one’s self. It is no humility for a man to think less of himself than he ought, though it might rather puzzle him to do that.

You cannot measure a man by his failures. You must know what use he makes of them. What did they mean to him. What did he get out of them.