He filled a shelf with a small army of books and read and read; but none of it made sense. .. They were all subject to various cramping limitations: those of the past were outdated, and those of the present were obsessed with the past.

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..depression still kept guard on him, and chased after him like a shadow - or like a faithful wife.

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People are so like their first mother Eve: what they are given doesn't take their fancy. The serpent is forever enticing them to come to him, to the tree of mystery. They must have the forbidden fruit, or paradise will not be paradise for them.

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Thus people--so it seems to me-- Become good friends from sheer ennui.

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I was not born to amuse the Tsars.

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Better the illusions that exalt us than ten thousand truths.

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Two fixed ideas can no more exist together in the moral world than two bodies can occupy one and the same place in the physical world.

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My whole life has been pledged to this meeting with you...

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If you but knew the flames that burn in me which I attempt to beat down with my reason.

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Moral maxims are surprisingly useful on occasions when we can invent little else to justify our actions.

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