One does not concern oneself with the expressions, but rather with life. You are looking at life through the wrong end of the telescope when you look at the expressions of life.
Completely true to nature!' - what a lie: / How could nature ever be constrained into a picture? / The smallest bit of nature is infinite! / And so he paints what he likes about it. / And what does he like? He likes what he can paint!
With wavering steps does fickle fortune stray,
Nowhere she finds a firm and fixed abode;
But now all smiles, and now again all frowns,
She's constant only in inconstancy.
Lastly no woman should marry a teetotaller, or a man who does not smoke. It is not for nothing that this "ignoble tobagie" as Michelet calls it, spreads all over the world.
when you recollect something which belonged in an earlier chapter, do not go back, but jam it in where you are . Discursiveness does not hurt an autobiography in the least.