Scholars who become politicians are usually assigned the comic role of having to be the good conscience of state policy.

A book should long for pen, ink, and writing-table: but usually it is pen, ink, and writing-table that long for a book. That is why books are so negligible nowadays.

Everything about woman is a riddle, and everything about woman has a single solution: that is, pregnancy

You are rewarding a teacher poorly if you remain always a pupil.

And so, onwards... along a path of wisdom, with a hearty tread, a hearty confidence.. however you may be, be your own source of experience. Throw off your discontent about your nature. Forgive yourself your own self. You have it in your power to merge everything you have lived through- false starts, errors, delusions, passions, your loves and your hopes- into your goal, with nothing left over.

I believe only in French culture and consider everything in Europe that calls itself 'culture' a misunderstanding, not to speak of German culture.

Pain makes hens and poets cackle.