Imaginative, sanguine men will never recognize that in negotiations the most dangerous moment of all is when everything is moving according to their wishes.

The mind, too, has its regimen. It needs gymnastics, just like the body does.

One admirable trait in women is their lack of illusions about themselves. They never reason about their most blameworthy actions; their feelings carry them away. Even their dissimulation comes naturally to them, and in them crime is free of all baseness. Most of the time they simply do not know how it happened.

Glory is a poison, good to be taken in small doses.

France is a country that loves to change their government if it is always the same.

All happiness depends on courage and work. I have had many periods of wretchedness, but with energy and above all with illusions, I pulled through them all.

Yes, I can understand that a man might go to a gambling table when he sees that all that lies between him and death is his last crown.