Nobody looks at the moon in the afternoon, and this is the moment when it would most require our attention, since its existence is still in doubt.

In politics, as in every other sphere of life, there are two important principles for a man of any sense: don't cherish too many illusions, and never stop believing that every little bit helps.

There is nothing for it but for all of us to invent our own ideal libraries of classics. I would say that such a library ought to be composed half of books we have read and that have really counted for us, and half of books we propose to read and presume will come to count—leaving a section of empty shelves for surprises and occasional discoveries

You reach a moment in life when, among the people you have known, the dead outnumber the living. And the mind refuses to accept more faces, more expressions: on every new face you encounter, it prints the old forms, for each one it finds the most suitable mask.

In love, as in gluttony, pleasure is a matter of the utmost precision.

We could say, then, that man is an instrument the world employs to renew its own image constantly.

Futures not achieved are only branches of the past: dead branches.