How weak our mind is; how quickly it is terrified and unbalanced as soon as we are confronted with a small, incomprehensible fact. Instead of dismissing the problem with: "We do not understand because we cannot find the cause," we immediately imagine terrible mysteries and supernatural powers.

Abstinence is the worst form of perversion.

...A strange art – music – the most poetic and precise of all the arts, vague as a dream and precise as algebra.

Military men are the scourges of the world.

Conversation. What is it? A Mystery! It's the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all.

Anguish of suspense made men even desire the arrival of enemies.

Everything is false, everything is possible, everything is doubtful.