We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity - romantic love and gunpowder.

Art is an effort to create, beside the real world, a more humane world.

Men and women are not born inconstant: they are made so by their early amorous experiences.

A marriage without conflicts is almost as inconceivable as a nation without crises.

A friend loves you for your intelligence, a mistress for your charm, but your family's love is unreasoning; you were born into it and are of its flesh and blood. Nevertheless it can irritate you more than any group of people in the world.

Memory is a great artist. For every man and for every woman it makes the recollection of his or her life a work of art and an unfaithful record.

If men could regard the events of their own lives with more open minds, they would frequently discover that they did not really desire the things they failed to obtain.