The Arab who built himself a hut with marbles from the temple of Palmyra is more philosophical than all the curators of the museums of London, Paris, and Munich.

The power of love itself weakens and gradually becomes lost with age, like all the other energies of man.

Sometimes one day in a difference place gives you more than ten years of a life at home.

A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.

Man is a rational animal. He can think up a reason for anything he wants to believe.

I am a physician. I keep a drug-shop of lies. I give relief, consolation. Can one console and relieve without lying? ... Only women and doctors know how necessary and how helpful lies are to men.

God, conquered, will become Satan; Satan, conquering, will become God. May the fates spare me this terrible lot; I love the Hell which formed my genius. I love the Earth where I have done some good, if it be possible to do any good in this fearful world where beings live but by rapine.