We can always explain our merriment, but often not our melancholy. Glee is concrete and affirmative; dejection is vague and negative; and the negative is unlimited.
The drama of life is a tragedy, for its last scene is always that of the death of the title-role. We take the greatest interest in the spectacle, but rarely care to remember the denouement.
If you love life so much, why complain of ennui? There is nothing like it for lengthening the hours, and thus giving you longer to live.
The more pleasant the moments, the swifter they fly. Perfect happiness would destroy Time.
Many pleasures, like Barbary figs, are gathered at the cost of bleeding fingers.