It is almost impossible systematically to constitute a natural moral law. Nature has no principles. She furnishes us with no reason to believe that human life is to be respected. Nature, in her indifference, makes no distinction between good and evil.

The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which will last forever.

The mania of thinking renders one unfit for every activity.

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

When a history book contains no lies it is always tedious.

In art as in love, instinct is enough.

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.