Instinct guides the animal better than the man. In the animal it is pure, in man it is led astray by his reason and intelligence.

Whatever dressing one gives to mushrooms, to whatever sauces our Apiciuses put them, they are not really good but to be sent back to the dungheap where they are born.

Those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact-finders.

Scepticism is the first step toward truth.

The first promise exchanged by two beings of flesh was at the foot of a rock that was crumbling into dust; they took as witness for their constancy a sky that is not the same for a single instant; everything changed in them and around them, and they believed their hearts free of vicissitudes. O children! always children!

Give, but, if possible, spare the poor man the shame of begging.

To describe women, the pen should be dipped in the humid colors of the rainbow, and the paper dried with the dust gathered from the wings of a butterfly.