The most entertaining surface on earth is the human face.

A donkey appears to me like a horse translated into Dutch.

Man can acquire accomplishments or he can become an animal, whichever he wants. God makes the animals, man makes himself.

Many intelligent people, when about to write . . . , force on their minds a certain notion about style, just as they screw up their faces when they sit for their portraits.

Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older.

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

We often have need of a profound philosophy to restore to our feelings their original state of innocence, to find our way out of the rubble of things alien to us, to begin to feel for ourselves and to speak ourselves, and I might almost say to exist ourselves.