Why must one love rarely to love well?

For a man who loves power, competition from the gods is annoying. I have done away with that. I have proven to these illusory godsthat a man, if he has the will, can practice, without any apprenticeship, their ridiculous trade.

A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.

A loveless world is a dead world.

...the play of the toughest and most lucid mind are at the same time both lavished andsquandered.

That's the way man is, cher monsieur. He has two faces: he can't love without self-love.

The Poor Man whom everyone speaks of, the Poor Man whom everyone pities, one of the repulsive Poor from whom charitable souls keep their distance, he has still said nothing. Or, rather, he has spoken through the voice of Victor Hugo, Zola, Richepin. At least, they said so. And these shameful impostures fed their authors. Cruel irony, the Poor Man tormented with hunger feeds those who plead his case.