Most of our faculties lie dormant because they can rely upon Habit, which knows what there is to be done and has no need of their services. - Marcel Proust

Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.

Once we have reached a certain degree of enfeeblement, whether caused by age or by ill health, all pleasure taken at the expense of sleep, every disturbance of routine, becomes a nuisance.

something which had taken place had not taken place for me; the fascination of my book, a magic as potent as the deepest slumber, had stopped my enchanted ears and had obliterated the sound of that golden bell from the azure surface of the enveloping silence.