From the first moment of life, men ought to begin learning to deserve to live.

Nothing makes me so happy as to observe nature and to paint what I see.

It is not the criminal things which are hardest to confess, but the ridiculous and shameful.

We are the two great painters of this era; you are in the Egyptian style, I in themodern style. (to Pablo Picasso)

If a king tries to start a war, a mother should go to him and forbid it.

The severity of penalties is only a vain resource, invented by little minds in order to substitute terror for that respect which they have no means of obtaining.

Luxury... corrupts at once rich and poor, the rich by possession and the poor by covetousness.