Echoes

Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

The course of true love never did run smooth.

Marriage must constantly vanquish a monster that devours everything: the monster of habit.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love.

Be detached from desire your whole life long.

It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am, the more affection I have for them.

A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.

You shall have joy, or you shall have power, said God; you shall not have both.

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up.

There is not love of life without despair about life.

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.

Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.

We place the happy life in the security of the mind and in freedom from all obligations.

Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world; and this is not a woman's province in a married state. Her sphere of action is not large, and if she is not taught to look into her own heart, how trivial are her occupations and pursuits! What little arts engross and narrow her mind!

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

The most common form of despair is not being who you are.

The first bond of society is the marriage tie; the next, our children; then the whole family of our house.

Our sadness is not sad, but our cheap joys.

Not to display anger or other emotions. To be free of passion and yet full of love.

An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.

One dies twice: to cease to live is nothing, but to cease to love and to be loved is an insupportable death.