Quote collection
252 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past, which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future."
"Money cannot buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you're being miserable. Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness."
"In other people's company I felt I was dull, gloomy, unwelcome, at once bored and boring."
"Mozart's joy is made of serenity, and a phrase of his music is like a calm thought; his simplicity is merely purity. It is a crystalline thing in which all the emotions play a role, but as if already celestially transposed. Moderation consists in feeling emotions as the angels do."
"There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them."
"Are you then unable to recognize unless it has the same sound as yours?"
"When everything belongs to everyone, nobody will take care of anything."
"Nothing is so silly as the expression of a man who is being complimented."
"Nothing excellent can be done without leisure."
"Christianity, above all, consoles; but there are naturally happy souls who do not need consolation. Consequently Christianity begins by making such souls unhappy, for otherwise it would have no power over them."
"It is now, and in this world, that we must live."
"Our judgements about things vary according to the time left us to live -that we think is left us to live."
"Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all."
"No encounter occured that day, and I was glad of it; I took out of my pocket a little Homer I had not opened since leaving Marseilles, reread three lines of the Odyssey, learned them by heart; then, finding sufficient sustenance in their rhythm and reveling in them at leisure, I closed the book and remained, trembling, more alive than I had thought possible, my mind numb with happiness."
"One completely overcomes only what one assimilates."
"Great authors are admirable in this respect: in every generation they make for disagreement. Through them we become aware of our differences."
"In hell there is no other punishment than to begin over and over again the tasks left unfinished in your lifetime."
"No theory is good unless it permits, not rest, but the greatest work. No theory is good except on condition that one use it to go on beyond."
"It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking to it that one overcomes it; often it is by working on the one next to it. Some things and some people have to be approached obliquely, at an angle."
"The only real education comes from what goes counter to you."