“All happiness depends on courage and work.”

“The faint hints of color in her complexion, her tawny blond hair, her extraordinary thinness, all spoke of that unearthly grace modern poets find in the medieval statues. Had she been happy, she'd have been ravishing: happiness constitutes pure poetry, for women.”

“Some day you will find out that there is far more happiness in another's happiness than in your own.”

“Every moment of happiness requires a great amount of Ignorance”

“The more he saw, the more he doubted. He watched men narrowly, and saw how, beneath the surface, courage was often rashness; and prudence, cowardice; generosity, a clever piece of calculation; justice, a wrong; delicacy, pusillanimity; honesty, a modus vivendi; and by some strange dispensation of fate, he must see that those who at heart were really honest, scrupulous, just, generous, prudent or brave were held cheaply by their fellow-men. ‘What a cold-blooded jest!’ said he to himself. ‘It was not devised by a God.’ From that time forth he renounced a better world, and never uncovered himself when a Name was pronounced, and for him the carven saints in the churches became works of art”

“We flew back home like swallows. 'Is it happiness that makes us so light?' Agathe asked.”

“Women themselves are so happy, and so beautiful, when they're strong, that they naturally choose powerful men, even if that power's so enermous there's a real risk it could shatter them.”