A silent mouth is sweet to hear.

Anybody, providing he knows how to be amusing, has the right to talk about himself.

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters...But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.

Life swarms with innocent monsters.

Wine transforms moles into eagles.

I am bored in France because everyone resembles Voltaire.

My concern today is with the painting of manners of the present. The past is interesting not only by reason of the beauty which could be distilled from it by those artists for whom it was the present, but also precisely because it is the past, for its historical value. It is the same with the present. The pleasure which we derive from the representation of the present is due not only to the beauty with which it can be invested, but also to its essential quality of being present