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God is only a word dreamed up to explain the world

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Human life is a sad show, undoubtedly; ugly, heavy and complex. Art has no other end, for people of feeling than to conjure away the burden and bitter...more

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And so I will take back up my poor life, so plain and so tranquil, where phrases are adventures and the only flowers I gather are metaphors.

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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 th...more

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One can be the master of what one does, but never of what one feels.

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One mustn't ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.

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

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An overwhelming curiosity makes me ask myself what their lives might be like. I want to know what they do, where they're from, their names, what they'...more

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Life must be a constant education; one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.

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The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in...more

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Never have things of the spirit counted for so little. Never has hatred for everything great been so manifest – disdain for beauty, execration of lite...more

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From time to time, I open a newspaper. Things seem to be proceeding at a dizzying rate. We are dancing not on the edge of a volcano, but on the wooden...more

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As humanity perfects itself, man becomes degraded. When everything is reduced to the mere counter-balancing of economic interests, what room will ther...more

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Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.

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There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it