It is well for the heart to be naive and for the mind not to be.

Those who have given themselves the most concern about the happiness of peoples have made their neighbors very miserable.

A writer is rarely so well inspired as when he talks about himself.

For a man’s life would become intolerable, if he knew what was going to happen to him. He would be made aware of future evils, and would suffer their agonies in advance, while he would get no joy of present blessings since he would know how they would end. Ignorance is the necessary condition of human happiness, and it has to be admitted that on the whole mankind observes that condition well. We are almost entirely ignorant of ourselves; absolutely of others. In ignorance, we find our bliss; in illusions, our happiness.

Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.

That child whose mother has never smiled upon him is worthy neither of the table of the gods nor the couch of the goddesses.

Yet, every now and then, there would pass a young girl, slender, fair and desirable, arousing in young men a not ignoble desire to possess her, and stirring in old men regrets for ecstasy not seized and now forever past.