It is only the man whose intellect is clouded by his sexual impulse that could give the name of the fair sex to that undersized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, and short-legged race.

A man who has not enough originality to think out a new title for his book will be much less capable of giving it new contents.

Faith is like love: it does not let itself be forced.

A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.

Every time a man is begotten and born, the clock of human life is wound up anew to repeat once more its same old tune that has already been played innumerable times, movement by movement and measure by measure, with insignificant variations.

The little incidents and accidents of every day fill us with emotion, anxiety, annoyance, passion, as long as they are close to us, when they appear so big, so important, so serious; but as soon as they are borne down the restless stream of time they lose what significance they had; we think no more of them and soon forget them altogether. They were big only because they were near.

The conviction that the world and man is something that had better not have been, is of a kind to fill us with indulgence towards one another.