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| I had come in time to learn that it was a mistake to smile a friendly smile when somebody made a fool of me. |
| Uncategorized |
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| I perceived that to express those impressions, to write that essential book, which is the only true one, a great writer does not, in the current meaning of the word, invent it, but, since it exists already in each one of us, interprets it. The duty and the task of a writer are those of an interpreter. |
| Books; Writing |
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| I understood that all the material of a literary work was in my past life, I understood that I had acquired it in the midst of frivolous amusements, in idleness, in tenderness and in pain, stored up by me without my divining its destination or even its survival, as the seed has in reserve all the ingredients which will nourish the plant. |
| Uncategorized |
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| If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time. |
| Dreams |
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| If only for the sake of elegance, I try to remain morally pure. |
| Uncategorized |
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| Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge we make promise only; pain we obey. |
| Uncategorized |
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| Illness is the most heeded of doctors: to goodness and wisdom we only make promises; pain we obey |
| Illness |
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| In a separation it is the one who is not really in love who says the more tender things. |
| Love; Separation |
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| In his younger days a man dreams of possessing the heart of the woman whom he loves; later, the feeling that he possesses the heart of a woman may be enough to make him fall in love with her. |
| Dreams; Men; Youth |
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| In reality, in love there is a permanent suffering which joy neutralizes, renders virtual, delays, but which can at any moment become what it would have become long earlier if one had not obtained what one wanted, atrocious |
| Joy; Love |
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| In theory one is aware that the earth revolves, but in practice one does not perceive it, the ground upon which one treads seems not to move, and one can live undisturbed. So it is with Time in one's life. |
| Time |
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| It has been said that beauty brings a promise of happiness, but it could be otherwise that the possibility of joy is the beginning of beauty. |
| Beauty |
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| It is always during a passing state of mind that we make lasting resolutions |
| Mind; Resolution |
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| It is always thus, impelled by a state of mind which is destined not to last, that we make our irrevocable decisions |
| Uncategorized |
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| It is comforting when one has a sorrow to lie in the warmth of one's bed and there, abandoning all effort and all resistance, to bury even one's head under the cover, giving one's self up to it completely, moaning like branches in the autumn wind. But there is still a better bed, full of divine odors. It is our sweet, our profound, our impenetrable friendship. |
| Uncategorized |
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| It is in moments of illness that we are compelled to recognize that we live not alone but chained to a creature of a different kingdom, whole worlds apart, who has no knowledge of us and by whom it is impossible to make ourselves understood: our body. |
| Uncategorized |
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| It is not because other people are dead that our affection for them grows faint, it is because we ourselves are dying |
| Uncategorized |
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| It is often hard to bear the tears that we ourselves have caused |
| Uncategorized |
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| It is seldom indeed that one parts on good terms, because if one were on good terms, one would not part |
| Uncategorized |
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| Less disappointing than life, great works of art do not begin by giving us all their best |
| Uncategorized |
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