There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.

London is a riddle. Paris is an explanation.

No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.

There are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands.

You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

Every man who will not have softening of the heart must at last have softening of the brain