French
Critic,
Author and
Essayist
(July 10,
1871 -
November 18,
1922)
"All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last."
"Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself."
"Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind."
"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."
"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."
"The one thing more difficult than following a regimen is not imposing it on others."
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
"There is no man, however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory."
"We are healed from suffering only by experiencing it to the full."
"We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us."
