If life were organized, there would be no need for art.

Man: The most complex of beings, and thus the most dependent of beings. On all that made you up, you depend.

Woe to these people who have no appetite for the very dish that their age serves up.

True eloquence forgoes eloquence.

What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it; what another would have written as well, do not write it. Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself - and thus make yourself indispensable.

It is unthinkable for a Frenchman to arrive at middle age without having syphilis and the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

Society knows perfectly well how to kill a man and has methods more subtle than death