The terrible thing about the quest for truth is that you find it.
The greater part of a men who speak ill of women are speaking of a certain woman.
To have a solid foundation of skepticism, -that is to say, the faculty of changing at any moment, of turning back, of facing successively the metamorphoses of life.
Everything, indeed, in a work of art should be unedited,–and even the words, by the manner of grouping them, of shaping them to new meanings,–and one often regrets having an alphabet familiar to too many half-lettered persons.
It was an accident that has endowed man with intelligence. He has made use of it: he invented stupidity.
Intelligence is perhaps but a malady, -a beautiful malady; the oysters’s pearl.
Each man must grant himself the emotions that he needs and the morality that suits him.
Tears flow and smiles fade to the same rhythm of life, to disappear together in the bottomless abyss.
The pleasure of being a scoundrel can be adequately savored in silence.
Man can no more see the world than a fish can see the river bank.
The little girl expects no declaration of tenderness from her doll. She loves it, & that’s all. It is thus that we should love.
How many contradictions! Eh! If I loaded my wagon all on the same side, I’d tumble it over.