love as a passion—it is our European specialty—must absolutely be of noble origin; as is well known, its invention is due to the Provencal poet-cavaliers, those brilliant, ingenious men of the "gai saber," to whom Europe owes so much, and almost owes itself.

There will be but few people who, when at a loss for topics of conversation, will not reveal the more secret affairs of their friends.

Writers ought to be regarded as wrongdoers who deserve to be acquitted or pardoned only in the rarest cases: that would be a way to keep books from getting out of hand.

To have and to want more that is life.

“Evil men have no songs.” How is it, then, that the Russians have songs?

The State is the coldest of all cold monsters, and coldly it tells lies, and this lie drones on from its mouth: 'I, the State, am the people'.

I am no man, I am dynamite.