The relish of good and evil depends in a great measure upon the opinion we have of them.

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.

Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.

Experience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and their limits, their sickness and their health.

Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.

The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.

Our most potent memories include the taste and smells of foods we enjoyed as a child in part because it reminds us of who fed us a meal.

It is only when we admit our ignorance that we can hope to overcome it.

When people fall in love, they are apt to go a little mad.

Christ died for men precisely because men are not worth dying for; to make them worth it.

To be calm when you've found something going on

Everyone is a genius at least once a year.

Art to be art must soothe.

I prayed fifteen years for the conversion of my oldest brother. When he seemed to be getting further and further away from any hope of conversion, I prayed on.

A midnight knock on the door followed by execution is no way a leader should be treated.

I've always had an abundance of material about the subjects of my biographies.