A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reform. It does not haggle over expenditures for armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain.

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.

A woman without breasts is like a bed without pillows.

He flattered himself on being a man without any prejudices; and this pretension itself is a very great prejudice.

The law ... allows rich as well as poor to sleep under bridges.

Christianity has done a great deal for love by making a sin of it.

I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.