The discovery of the North Pole is one of those realities which could not be avoided. It is the wages which human perseverance pays itself when it thinks that something is taking too long. The world needed a discoverer of the North Pole, and in all areas of social activity, merit was less important here than opportunity.

Through my satire I make little people so big that afterwards they are worthy objects of my satire and no one can reproach me any longer.

Nationalism is the love which ties me to the blockheads of my country, to the insultors of my way of life, and to the desecrators of my language.

Mankind became hysterical in the Middle Ages because it poorly repressed the sexual impressions of its Greek boyhood.

A snob is unreliable. The work he praises might just be good.

A poem is good until one knows by whom it is.

What is a historian? Someone who doesn't write well enough to work on a daily.