“Children at once accept joy and happiness with quick familiarity, being themselves naturally all happiness and joy. ”

“The poor man shuddered, overflowed with an angelic joy; he declared in his transport that this would last through life; he said to himself that he really had not suffered enough to deserve such radiant happiness, and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should be so loved by this innocent being.”

“Doing nothing is happiness for children and misery for old men.”

“It is a terrible thing to be happy! How pleased we are with it! How all-sufficient we think it! How, being in possession of the false aim of life, happiness, we forget the true aim, duty!”

“Melancholy is the happiness of being sad.”

“Every torment they had experienced was returned to them an intoxication. It seemed to them that the griefs , the sleeplessness, the tears, the anguish, the dismay, the despair, became caresses and radiance...and that their sorrows were so many servants preparing their joy. To have suffered, how good it is! Their grief made a halo around their happiness.”

“These are true felicities. No joy beyond these joys. Love is the only ecstasy, everything else weeps”