A man's eroticism is a woman's sexuality.

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.

The unattractive thing about chauvinism is not so much the aversion to other nations as the love of one's own.

There are people who can never forgive a beggar for their not having given him anything.

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.

There is a cultural taste which tries very hard to get rid of the lice in a fur coat. There is another which tolerates the lice and thinks the coat can be worn with them in it. And finally there is a taste which regards the lice as the most important thing about the coat and consequently places the coat at the lice's disposal.

I have decided many a stylistic problem first by my head, then by heads or tails.