"S. Augustine. : You are the victim of a terrible plague of the soul — melancholy ; which the moderns call accidie..."

"Civilization, our drug, has so poisoned us that our dependence on it is an addiction, a mixture of ecstasy and curse."

"That day, Des Esseintes took this incomparable book from his shelves and handled it devotedly..."

"There is, no doubt, a perfect analogy between the life of the human and that of the vegetable, both of the body and the mind."

"In fact, for solid happiness and peace, there are none more favored than those blessed with a master-passion and a monopolizing work."

"It looked as though it had been built for all time. But this was not so. For it was built on sand, and of sand; and the tide was coming..."

"The black trees stood around me, rustling, and I loved them. Stars shone down from above, and I breathed in their white salutation."

"Who am I ? How did I get into the world ? Why was I not asked about it ?"

"The same book in the hand, the same pen between the fingers, the same conversation on the lips, and the same automobile instead of feet."

"When I grew up it seemed to me that the one advantage of living in London was that nobody ever wanted me to come out for a walk."

"Only transcendence can make this questionable life good, the world beautiful, and existence itself a fulfilment."

"Living thus, year in and year out, .. remote from the nature that is outside them, and no less remote from the nature that is within."

"Now Ziegler felt deeply horrified, for ever since he swallowed the magic pill, he had understood the language of animals."

"Transformational Positivity, he says, is the future of organizational change. Optimism can and must become a permanent state of mind."

"The fact that the student enjoyed his happiness only in a dream should not diminish it ..."

"What poem is this of spring, so often repeated ! I am thrilled when I hear it spoken of..."

"The older I grow, the more of an alien I find myself in the world; I cannot get used to it, cannot believe that it is real."

"Can it be possible that I am as real as any one else, and that all of us feel ourselves like ghosts and goblins in this authentic world ?"

"Oh, how he yearned to feel the vibration between himself and everything in the world !"

"Old age is a stage in our lives, ... it has its own face, its own atmosphere and temperature, its own joys and needs."

"Stone on the path, you are stronger than me ! Tree in the meadow, you will outlast me, and perhaps so will you, little raspberry bush..."

"I offer this book to you not as a lorgnette to observe others but as a mirror to observe yourself."

"If I could, I would choose every day another form, plant or animal, I would be all flowers one by one: weed, thistle, or rose..."