The longer the road to love, the keener is the pleasure to be experienced by the sensitive lover. - André Maurois

Great things are not accomplished with physical strength and agility, says Cicero, but through consultation, authority, and the mature wisdom which old age, far from lacking, is endowed with abundantly.

A leader should have a quick intelligence. Time is a factor in all action. An imperfect scheme put into action at the proper time is better than a perfect one accomplished too late. Sometimes time is so important that it becomes the principal consideration.

Reading, like all work, has its rules. A perfect knowledge of a few writers and a few subjects is more valuable than a superficial one of a great many. The fine points of a piece of writing are seldom apparent at first reading. In youth, one should search among books as one searches the world for friends, and once these friends are found, chosen, and adopted, one must go into retirement with them. Intimacy with Montaigne, Saint Simon, Retz, Balzac, or Proust would be enough to enrich one's whole life.