Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It is always thus, impelled by a state of mind which is destined not to last, we make our irrevocable decisions
There is no idea that does not carry in itself a possible refutation, no word that does not imply its opposite.
Reality is never more than a first step towards an unknown on the road to which one can never progress very far.
The only thing that does not change is that at any and every time it appears that there have been great changes.
If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.
We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.
There's nothing like desire to prevent the things one says from having any resemblance to the things in one's mind.
Only by art can we get outside ourselves, instead of seeing only one world, our own, we see it under multiple forms.
It is not only by dint of lying to others, but also of lying to ourselves, that we cease to notice that we are lying.
For, just as in the beginning it is formed by desire, so afterwards love is kept in existence only by painful anxiety.
It is not because other people are dead that our affection for them grows faint, it is because we ourselves are dying.
There are people whose faces assume an unaccustomed beauty and majesty the moment they cease to look out of their eyes.
Everything great in the world comes from neurotics. They alone have founded our religions and composed our masterpieces.
A little insomnia is not without its value in making us appreciate sleep, in throwing a ray of light upon that darkness.
The truth is that men can have several sorts of pleasure. The true pleasure is the one for which they abandon the other.
Friendship is in the end no more than: " . . . a lie which seeks to make us believe that we are not irremediably alone."
Perfume is that last and best reserve of the past, the one which when all out tears have run dry, can make us cry again!
Do not wait for life. Do not long for it. Be aware, always and at every moment, that the miracle is in the here and now.
The particulars of life do not matter to the artist; they merely provide him with the opportunity to lay bare his genius.
A work should convey its entire meaning by itself, imposing it on the spectator even before he knows what the subject is.
Only imagination and belief can differentiate from the rest certain objects, certain people, and can create an atmosphere.
Just as those who practice the same profession recognize each other instinctively, so do those who practice the same vice.
If there is one thing more difficult than submitting oneself to a regime it is refraining from imposing it on other people.
It is the tragedy of other people that they are to us merely showcases for the very perishable collections of our own mind.
It has been said that beauty is a promise of happiness. Conversely, the possibility of pleasure can be a beginning of beauty.
L'adolescence est le seul temps o u' l'on ait appris quelque chose. Adolescence is the only time when we can learn something.
For theories and schools, like microbes and corpuscles, devour one another and by their strife ensure the continuity of life.
Love is not vain because it is frustrated, but because it is fulfilled. The people we love turn to ashes when we posess them.
Habit is a second nature which prevents us from knowing the first, of which it has neither the cruelties nor the enchantments.
When from a long distant past nothing subsists after the things are broken and scattered, the smell and taste of things remain.
But sometimes the future is latent in us without our knowing it, and our supposedly lying words foreshadow an imminent reality.
All the great things we know have come to us from neurotics. It is they who have founded religions and created great works of art.
One must never miss an opportunity of quoting things by others which are always more interesting than those one thinks up oneself.
The time at our disposal each day is elastic; the passions we feel dilate it, those that inspire us shrink it, and habit fills it.
Lies are essential to humanity. They are perhaps as important as the pursuit of pleasure and moreover are dictated by that pursuit.
At the heart of our friendly or purely social relations, there lurks a hostility momentarily cured but recurring by fits and starts.
The inertia of the mind urges it to slide down the easy slope of imagination, rather than to climb the steep slope of introspection.
Nobility is often no more than the inner aspect which our egotistical feelings assume when we have not yet named and classified them.
Man is the creature that cannot emerge from himself, that knows his fellows only in himself; when he asserts the contrary, he is lying.
Words do not change their meanings so drastically in the course of centuries as, in our minds, names do in the course of a year or two.
No exile at the South Pole or on the summit of Mont Blanc separates us more effectively from others than the practice of a hidden vice.
We feel in one world, we think and name in another. Between the two we can set up a system of references, but we cannot fill in the gap.
There is no doubt that a person's charms are less frequently a cause of love than a remark such as: 'No, this evening I shan't be free'.
The highest praise of God consists in the denial of him by the atheist who finds creation so perfect that it can dispense with a creator.
I believe that all true art is classic, but the dictates of the mind rarely permit of its being recognized as such when it first appears.
For one cannot change, that is to say become another person, while continuing to acquiesce to the feelings of the person one no longer is.
When you work to please others you can't succeed, but the things you do to satisfy yourself stand a chance of catching someone's interest.
Most of our faculties lie dormant because they can rely upon Habit, which knows what there is to be done and has no need of their services.
There comes in all our lives a time ... when the ears can listen to no music save what the moonlight breathes through the flute of silence.
There can be no peace of mind in love, since the advantage one has secured is never anything but a fresh starting-point for future desires.