When you look back on your life, it looks as though it were a plot, but when you are into it, it's a mess: just one surprise after another. Then, later, you see it was perfect.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.

Genius and madness have something in common: both live in a world that is different from that which exists for everyone else.

A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.

Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine.

Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

The language of a smile is charming, mesmerizing, meaningful, and often mysterious, but everyone understands a smile better than words.

No question, no problem, no concern, is too big or too small for God to handle!

I'm sure lovely girls such as yourselves need not worry about this"—Madame LaRoche begins, and I have a hunch we're about to be cautioned against something we enjoy

P.S. May, don’t these strawberry tarts just make you want to cry?

It is never cruel to want to save yourself from being swamped by fools.

I found I could extinguish all human hope from my soul.

What's going on in the inside shows on the outside.

Sometimes the only thing which truly tempts us is the thing which we cannot have.

After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes.

all to no end save beauty the eternal-- So in detail they, the crowd, are beautiful