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 They were all subject to various cramping limitations: those of the past were outdated, and those of the present were obsessed with the past.

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My dreams, my dreams! What has become of their sweetness? What indeed has become of my youth?

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

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Ecstasy is a glass full of tea and a piece of sugar in the mouth.

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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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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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A deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths.

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

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I want to understand you, I study your obscure language.

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I’ve lived to bury my desires, And see my dreams corrode with rust; Now all that’s left are fruitless fires That burn my empty heart to dust.

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