The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy. - Gustave Flaubert

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletariat to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeoisie.

Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.

As you get older, the heart shed its leaves like a tree. You cannot hold out against certain winds. Each day tears away a few more leaves; and then there are the storms that break off several branches at one go. And while nature’s greenery grows back again in the spring, that of the heart never grows back.