Paul Bourget

“The great objection to new books is that they prevent us from reading the old ones.”

“To analyze is to destroy.”

“To be astonished at anything is the first movement of the mind towards discovery.”

“The dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.”

“We do not possess our ideas, but are possessed by them. They master us and force us into the arena, where, like gladiators, we must fight for them.”

“In art, as in love, instinct is enough.”

“To live as one likes is a form of madness.”

“One should be able to say to our children: 'You are a soul, served by organs.'”

“There is no true love without jealousy.”

“The ideal is the flower of the real.”

“Thought is a chemical process, but it is a chemical process that is experienced.”

“We think so little of what we have, but so much of what we want.”

“It is necessary to act, to be able to be happy, and for that matter, to be.”

“The most beautiful of all doubts is the doubt of the existence of a God.”

“The modern man is not the man who is fighting for a new world, but the man who is fighting for his own world.”