“One cannot always keep an adder in one's breast to feed one, nor rise up every night to sow thorns in the garden of one's soul.”

“They take their punishment so well, so cheerfully: I go out with an adder in my heart, and an asp in my tongue, and every night I sow thorns in the garden of my soul.”

“I should fancy, however, that murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.”

“One is not always happy when one is good; but one is always good when one is happy.”

“Human life--that appeared to him the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any value. It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass, nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams.”

“You like every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one.”

“When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”