There are four types of men in the world: lovers, opportunists, lookers-on, and imbeciles. The happiest are the imbeciles.

I've met many thinkers and many cats, but the wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.

A fixed idea is like the iron rod which sculptors put in their statues. It impales and sustains.

The production of a work of art is determined by the material and intellectual climate in which a man lives and dies.

Four varieties in society: lovers, the ambitious, observers, and fools. The fools are the happiest.

We study ourselves three weeks, we love each other three months, we squabble three years, we tolerate each other thirty years, and then the children start all over again.

Kindly politeness is the slow fruit of advanced reflection; it is a sort of humanity and kindliness applied to small acts and every day discourse: it bids man soften towards others, and forget himself for the sake of others: it constrains genuine nature, which is selfish and gross.