“Love is something difficult and it is more difficult than other things because in other conflicts nature herself enjoins men to collect themselves, to take themselves firmly in the hand with all their strength, while in the heightening of love the impulse is to give oneself wholly away.”

“Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.”

“All companionship can consist in only the strengthening of neighboring solitudes, giving oneself is by nature harmful to companionship: for when a person abandons himself, he is no longer anything, and when two people both give themselves up in order to become closer to each other, there is no longer any ground beneath them and their being together is a continual falling – I have learned over and over again, there is scarcely anything more difficult than to love one another.”

“It's much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others.”

“Women must convert their love for and reliance on strength and skill in others to a love for all manner of strength and skill in themselves”

“Then you shall judge yourself,' the king answered. 'that is the most difficult thing of all. It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom.”