At one time or another, almost every politician needs an honest man so badly that, like a ravenous wolf, he breaks into a sheep-fold: not to devour the ram he has stolen, however, but rather to conceal himself behind its wooly back.

No victor believes in chance.

Man is the only animal that must be encouraged to live.

Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful; and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm.

The great advantage in noble parentage is that enables one to endure poverty more easily.

What saved me then? Nothing but pregnancy. And each time after I had given birth to my work my life hung suspended by a thin thread.

The view that honesty is something, and even a virtue, belongs, it is true, to those private opinions which are forbidden in this age of public opinions.