Your modest savant smiles as he says to his admirers: What have I done? Nothing. Man does not invent a force, he directs it.

Nothing is so discreet as a young face, for nothing is less mobile; it has the serenity, the surface smoothness, and the freshnessof a lake. There is no character in women's faces before the age of thirty.

There are as many mediocrities exalted through pity as masters decried through envy.

It is easy to sit up and take notice, What is difficult is getting up and taking action.

There is neither vice nor virtue, there are only circumstances.

There is something great and terrible about suicide.

The great secret of social alchemy is to profit best from each stage in our lives, to gather all its leaves in spring, all its flowers in summer, and all its fruits in autumn.