Just when the question of how to live had become clearer to him, a new insoluble problem presented itself - Death.

Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait . . . There is nothing stronger than these two: patience and time, they will do it all.

If there existed no external means for dimming their consciences, one-half of the men would at once shoot themselves, because to live contrary to one's reason is a most intolerable state, and all men of our time are in such a state.

I often think with regret of that fresh, beautiful feeling of boundless, disinterested love which came to an end without having ever found self-expression or return. It is strange how, when a child, I always longed to be like grown-up people, and yet how I have often longed, since childhood's days, for those days to come back to me!

I think the motive force of all our action is, after all, personal happiness.

...Those children were already beginning to repay her care by affording her small joys. These joys were so trifling as to be as imperceptible as grains of gold among the sand, and in moments of depression she saw nothing but sand; yet there were brighter moments when she felt nothing but joy, saw nothing but the gold.