"Few minds are spacious; few even have an empty place in them or can offer some vacant point. Almost all have narrow capacities and are filled by some knowledge that blocks them up. What a torture to talk to filled heads, that allow nothing from the outside to enter them! A good mind, in order to enjoy itself and allow itself to enjoy others, always keeps itself larger than its own thoughts. And in order to do this, this thoughts must be given a pliant form, must be easily folded and unfolded, so they are capable, finally, or maintaining a natural flexibility. All those short-sighted minds see clearly within their little ideas and see nothing in those of others; they are like those bad eyes that see from close range what is obscure and cannot perceive what is clear from afar. Night minds, minds of darkness."

"All gardeners live in beautiful places because they make them so."

"I have too much brain for my head. It cannot play comfortably in its box."

"What is promised to you in dreams is given to you in dreams!"

"Beyond the brain, there is something that observes the brain itself."

"Undoubtedly, philosophy caused the Revolution. But what caused philosophy? Theological arrogance."

"Those who never back down love themselves more than they love the truth."

"What you call weakness comes from the strength of friendship."

"All those whom for style is not a game but a labor."

"...burdened with the unbearable weight of ourselves."

"From the center we should perceive the circle."

"All clear and transparent words appear to be beautiful sounds. Yes and no are not precisely clear words, but definite words. In clear words, there is more light than movement or attitude."

"In these times when, to express ourselves, we must speak in a way others do not."

"Think nothing outside their paper."

"I did not have good eyes nor light in my mind that day."

"Tacitus. And all those words that are obscure only once."

"One always adds a little of one's soul to what one thinks."

"Illusions comes from heaven and mistakes come from us."

"Available. A thought is perfect only when it is perfectly available, that is to say when one can place it and detach it at will."

"During our youth, there is something in us that is better than ourselves, I mean better than our desires, our pleasures, our yieldings, and our inclinations. Our soul is good then, even though our intelligence and will are not."

"It is above all the language for expressing these truths that have not yet been found."

"A person who is never duped cannot be a friend."

"I don't like to write anything down on paper that I would not say to myself."

"What man knows only through feeling can be explained only through enthusiasm."

"One must know how to enter the ideas of others and how to leave them. One must know how to leave one's own ideas and how to come back to them."

"It seems there is something spiritual in wine."

"The important business of man is life, and the important business of life is death."

"In every kind of debauch there enters much coldness of soul. It is a conscious and voluntary abuse of pleasure."

"It is not simply a matter of distinguishing between good and evil, but also of not confusing what is laughable with what is not. To make laughable what is not is in some way to make bad what was good."

"We are afraid of having and showing a small mind and we are not afraid of having and showing a small heart."

"One ruins the mind with too much writing. — One rusts it by not writing at all."

"To see the world means judging the judges."

"To descend into ourselves, we must first lift ourselves up."

"Genius is the aptitude for seeing invisible things, for stirring intangible things, for painting things that have no features."

"Conversation. — Because they have many of those ideas that, to be shown, have need of eyes, gestures, voice, a whole multitude of signs that the written word does not accompany. One sees the soul in operation."

"All ways of expressing ourselves are good if they make us understood. Thus, if the clarity of our thoughts comes through better in a play of words, then the wordplay is good."

"This poetic nudity within words."

"One can advance a long time in life without aging."

"The soul speaks to itself in parables."

"All reflection is art."

"To judge things of taste, we must give ourselves time to taste them."