For my part, unhappily, I'm consumed by a desire to learn and know.

It's deplorable, as I'm well aware, but I pass my days racking my brain over books....

I shall never know very much, that's certain; and perhaps that's the reason why I'm ever striving to learn a little more.

You must at all events grant that work, like idleness, is a means of passing life, though of course it is a less elegant and aesthetic one." "Less aesthetic, precisely," rejoined Hyacinthe.

"Beauty lies solely in the unexpressed, and life is simply degraded when one introduces anything material into it." Simpleton though he was in spite of the enormity of his pretensions, he doubtless detected that Francois had been speaking ironically.