“Old age: A great sense of calm and freedom. When the passions have relaxed their hold, you may have escaped, not from one master but from many. ”

“Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time ”

“In every man's heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty ”

“Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things”

“The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions ”

“I can resist everything except temptation”