This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. To have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right and to realize of a sudden that in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle: it has become a fairy tale.

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I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.

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Every man has his folly, but the greatest folly of all … is not to have one.

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Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble.

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For I realize today that it is a mortal sin to violate the great laws of nature. We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm.

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Happy is the man, I thought, who, before dying, has the good fortune to sail the Aegean sea.

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God changes his appearance every second. Blessed is the man who can recognize him in all his disguises.

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I was happy, I knew that. While experiencing happiness, we have difficulty in being conscious of it. Only when the happiness is past and we look back on it do we suddenly realize - sometimes with astonishment - how happy we had been.

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You have your brush, you have your colors, you paint the paradise, then in you go.

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A man needs a little madness, or else... he never dares cut the rope and be free.

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