Nature intends that, at fixed periods, men should succeed each other by the instrumentality of death. We shall never outwit Nature; we shall die as usual.

A well-cultivated mind is, so to speak, made up of all the minds of preceding ages; it is only one single mind which has been educated during all this time.

To despise theory is to have the excessively vain pretension to do without knowing what one does, and to speak without knowing what one says.

A true philosopher is like an elephant; he never puts the second foot down until the first one is solidly in place.

I have lived one hundred years; and I die with the consolation of never having thrown the slightest ridicule upon the smallest virtue.

Women react differently: a French woman who sees herself betrayed by her husband will kill his mistress; an Italian will kill her husband; a Spaniard will kill both; and a German will kill herself.

People almost always do great things without knowing how to do them, and are quite surprised to have done them.