Years do not always make age.
It is love, not faith, that moves mountains.
Nature distributes her favors unequally.
Talent, will and genius are natural phenomena like the lake, the volcano, the mountain, the wind, the star, the cloud.
The life of great geniuses is nothing but a sublime storm.
The smoke of glory is not worth the smoke of a pipe.
To forgive a fault in another is more sublime than to be faultless one’s self.
Believe in no other God than the one who insists on justice and equality among men.
Vanity is the quicksand of reason.
The cigar is the perfect complement to an elegant lifestyle.
A cigar numbs sorrow and fills the solitary hours with a million gracious images.
Heavens! whatever possesses us, here below, that we mutually torment ourselves, sourly reproach our mutual faults, and mercilessly condemn all that is not cut according to our pattern?
If people were not wicked I should not mind their being stupid; but, to our misfortune, they are both.
My strength has not equaled my mad ambition. I have remained obscure; I have done worse – I have touched success, and allowed it to escape me.
Simplicity, a delicate silence about oneself, increases their worth and makes one love those whom one admires.
No human being can control love, and no one is to blame either for feeling it or for losing it. What alone degrades a woman is falsehood.
The publication of a book only brings very paltry results to its author.
There is only one sex. A man and a woman are so entirely the same thing that one can scarcely understand the subtle reasons for sex distinctions with which our minds are filled.
Our work can never be better than we are ourselves.
To be made evident, truth must be sought for; for of itself it is slow to appear, and between ourselves and God the obstacles are so many!