Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable.

An actress without talent, forty years old, ate a partridge for dinner, and I felt sorry for the partridge, for it occurred to me that in its life it had been more talented, more sensible, and more honest than the actress.

A good upbringing means not that you won't spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you won't notice it when someone else does.

Lying is the same as alcoholism. Liars prevaricate even on their deathbeds.

You look boldly ahead; isn't it only that you don't see or divine anything terrible in the future; because life is still hidden from your young eyes.

The unhappy are egoistic, spiteful, unjust, cruel, and less capable of understanding each other than fools. Unhappiness does not bring people together but draws them apart, and even where one would fancy people should be united by the similarity of their sorrow, far more injustice and cruelty is generated than in comparatively placid surroundings.

Never bring a cannon on stage in Act I unless you intend to fire it by the last act.