Music played at weddings always reminds me of the music played for soldiers before they go into battle.

Like a great poet, Nature produces the greatest results with the simplest means. These are simply a sun, trees, flowers, water and love. Of course, if the spectator be without the last, the whole will present but a pitiful appearance, and in that case, the sun is merely so many miles in diameter, the trees are good for fuel, the flowers are classified by stamens, and the water is simply wet.

I take pride in never being rude to anyone on this earth, which contains a great number of unbearable villains who set upon you to recount their sufferings and even recite their poems.

The men of the past had convictions, while we moderns have only opinions.

I have never seen an ass who talked like a human being, but I have met many human beings who talked like asses.

I live, which is the main point.

We know only that our entire existence is forced into new paths and disrupted, that new circumstances, new joys and new sorrows await us, and that the unknown has its uncanny attractions, alluring and at the same time anguishing.