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

"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."

"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 ?"

"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."

"Je viens d'accomplir une plaisanterie complètement idiote, mais dont le souvenir me causera longtemps encore de vives allégresses."

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

"La philosophie, dont je crois utile et possible aux âmes passionnées d'adopter les secours, est de la nature la plus relevée."

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

"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..."

"— I realized this morning the prodigious effect of climate on one’s state of mind ..."

"Oh, dear friend, what a small amount of joy is mine and what a lot of my own smoke I have to consume !"

"When we are not alone when we are on our own, then we have achieved solitude."

"Dès le matin, j’avais été pris d’un étrange chagrin : il me semblait que tout le monde me fuyait, m’abandonnait, qu’on me laissait seul..."

"What's the matter ? You don't look like yourself !" "It's because I am so delighted, Mamma ! Do you know, now all Russia knows of me !"

"What is thought ? where does it dwell ? how is it formed ?"