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

There are as many kinds of modesty as there are races. To the English woman it is a duty; to the French woman a propriety.

The more I study the things of the mind the more mathematical I find them. In them as in mathematics it is a question of quantities; they must be treated with precision. I have never had more satisfaction than in proving this in the realms of art, politics and history.

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

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.

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

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