Sickness sensitizes man for observation, like a photographic plate.

Statistics is the first of the inexact sciences.

The English are crooked as a nation and honest as individuals. The contrary is true of the French, who are honest as a nation and crooked as individuals.

There have been many definitions of beauty in art. What is it? Beauty is what the untrained eyes consider abominable.

I have always derived indescribable pleasure from leading a decent woman to the edge of sin and leaving her there to live between the temptation and the fear of that sin.

History is a novel that has been lived, a novel is history that could have been.

Any man who does not see everything in terms of self, that is to say who wants to be something in respect of other men, to do good to them or simply give them something to do, is unhappy, disconsolate, and accursed.