Undoubtedly the desire for food has been and still is one of the main causes of political events.

Every living thing is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself.

In emancipation from the fears that beset the slave of circumstance he will experience a profound joy, and through all the vicissitudes of his outward life he will remain in the depths of his being a happy man.

It is only in marriage with the world that our ideals can bear fruit; divorced from it, they remain barren.

The puritanism of Christianity has played havoc with the moderation that an enlightened and tolerant critical spirit would have produced. I've noticed that in whatever country, county, town, or other region there is a regulation enjoining temperance, the population seems to be entirely composed of teetotallers and drunkards. There's a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire - poison and antidote.

One is always a little afraid of love, but above all, one is afraid of pain or causing pain.

It seems to me now that mathematics is capable of an artistic excellence as great as that of any music, perhaps greater; not because the pleasure it gives (although very pure) is comparable, either in intensity or in the number of people who feel it, to that of music, but because it gives in absolute perfection that combination, characteristic of great art, of godlike freedom, with the sense of inevitable destiny; because, in fact, it constructs an ideal world where everything is perfect and yet true.