History is nothing but a problem of mechanics applied to psychology.

For thirty centuries, from her sacred seat the cat looked down, and crouching at her feet, beheld the race of conquering Pharaohs kneel.

His tongue is by turns a sponge, a brush, a comb. He cleans himself, he smooths himself, he knows what is proper.

I wish to reproduce things as they are or as they would be even if I myself did not exist.

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

In the stormy current of life characters are weights or floats which at one time make us glide along the bottom, and at another maintain us on the surface.

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