Paradise does not exist, but we must nonetheless strive to be worthy of it.

Whenever I have talked to anyone at too great length, I am like a man who has drunk too much, and ashamed, doesn't know where to put himself.

The ideal of calm exists in a sitting cat.

There is a justice, but we do not always see it. Discreet, smiling, it is there, at one side, a little behind injustice, which makes a big noise.

In literature, there are only oxen. The biggest ones are the geniuses-the ones who toil eighteen hours a day without tiring.

Life is what our character makes it. We fashion it, as a snail does its shell. A man can say: I never made a fortune because it is not in my character to be rich.

A cold in the head causes less suffering than an idea.