There are only three events in a man's life; birth, life, and death; he is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live.
Most men spend the best part of their lives making the remaining part wretched.
Children have neither past nor future; they enjoy the present, which very few of us do.
Men regret their life has been ill-spent, but this does not always induce them to make a better use of the time they have yet to live.
Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates.
There is nothing men are so anxious to keep, and yet are so careless about, as life.
If this life is unhappy, it is a burden to us, which it is difficult to bear; if it is in every respect happy, it is dreadful to be deprived of it; so that in either case the result is the same, for we must exist in anxiety and apprehension.
If our life is unhappy it is painful to bear; if it is happy it is horrible to lose, So the one is pretty equal to the other.
At the beginning and at the end of love, the two lovers are embarrassed to find themselves alone.
One seeks to make the loved one entirely happy, or, if that cannot be, entirely wretched.
Most men employ the first part of life to make the other part miserable. [Fr., La plupart des hommes emploient la premiere part vie a rendre l'autre miserable.]
Life is short, if we are only said to live when we enjoy ourselves; and if we were merely to count up the hours we spent agreeably, a great number of years would hardly make up a life of a few months.
Life is a kind of sleep: old men sleep longest, nor begin to wake but when they are to die.
They that have lived a single day have lived an age.
We can recognize the dawn and the decline of love by the uneasiness we feel when alone together.
Life is short and tedious, and is wholly spent in wishing; we trust to find rest and enjoyment at some future time, often at an age when our best blessings, youth and health, have already left us. When at last I that time has arrived, it surprises us in the midst of fresh desires; we have got no farther when we are attacked by a fever which kills us; if we had been cured, it would only have been to give us more time for other desires.
