There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others.

We differ widely from each other ; do we not, as circumstances change around us, moulding us like slaves to their will — do we not differ yet more from ourselves ?

There is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others.

And though our roots belong to the same tree, our branches have grown in different directions.

The same word we love and hate, leaves in different directions, taking different paths.

Sometimes we live no particular way but our own

135. On est quelquefois aussi différent de soi-même que des autres.

thanks to the discrepancies between people’s thoughts and their actions, and to the diversity of their wishful impulses.

From this the poem springs: that we live in a place
That is not our own and, much more, not ourselves
And hard it is in spite of blazoned days.

Comme nos intérêts, nos sentiments diffèrent.

Words not only affect us temporarily; they change us, they socialize or unsocialize us.

We lead strange lives, chasing our dreams around from place to place.

The way we are living,
timorous or bold,
will have been our life.

We are not the same people that we have been, either in our social characteristics, in our patriotic sentiments, or in the tone of our moral and religious feelings.