“Smile, for everyone lacks self-confidence and more than any other one thing a smile reassures them.”

“Old age is far more than white hair, wrinkles, the feeling that it is too late and the game is finished, that the stage belongs to the rising generations. The true evil is not the weakening of the body, but the indifference of the soul.”

“[...] marriage is one thing, and love is another...You need to have a solid canvas; nobody stops you to weave the arabesques...”

“The friendship of two young people,' says Goethe somewhere, 'is delightful when the girl likes to learn and the boy to teach.' It will perhaps be said that this virgin curiosity is no more than unconscious physical desire; but what does it matter, if this desire sharpens the mind and deadens conceit?”

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

“Two human beings anchored to one another are like two ships shaken by waves; their carcases collide with one another and creak.”

“One might have said that reason made him flee from reason.”