We have drugs to make women speak, but none to keep them silent.

Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.

We find it hard to picture to ourselves the state of mind of a man of older days who firmly believed that the Earth was the centre of the Universe, and that all the heavenly bodies revolved around it. He could feel beneath his feet the writhings of the damned amid the flames; very likely he had seen with his own eyes and smelt with his own nostrils the sulphurous fumes of Hell escaping from some fissure in the rocks. Looking upwards, he beheld ... the incorruptible firmament, wherein the stars hung like so many lamps.

Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream.

We reproach people for talking about themselves but it is the subject they treat best.

The faculty of doubting is rare among men. A few choice spirits carry the germs of it in them, but these do not develop without training.

There is only one science, love, one riches, love, only one policy, love. To make love is all the law and the prophets.