Life is fountain of joy; but where the rabble also gather to drink, all wells are poisoned.

Mistrust those in whom the urge to punish is strong.

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.

Ye are ugly? Well then, my brethren, take the sublime about you, the mantle of the ugly!

We must beware of one who is in a passion against us as of one who has once sought our life; for the fact that we still live is due to the absence of power to kill, - if looks could kill, we should have been dead long ago.

Pardon me, my friends, I have ventured to paint my happiness on the wall.

To blaspheme the earth is now the most dreadful sin, and to rate the heart of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth!