Since it is necessary to have enemies, let us endeavour to have those who do us honour.

I have always thought that if we began for one moment to say what we thought, society would collapse.

Nothing is more painful to me than the disdain with which people treat second-rate authors, as if there were room only for the first-raters.

If I had a device, it would be the true, the true only, leaving the beautiful and the good to settle matters afterwards as best they could.

If you want to succeed, limit yourself.

Nature wants us to enjoy life to the full and die without giving it a second thought; Christianity wants the opposite.

Most celebrated men live in a condition of prostitution.