The success of many books is due to the affinity between the mediocrity of the author's ideas and those of the public.

Vain is equivalent to empty; thus vanity is so miserable a thing, that one cannot give it a worse name than its own. It proclaims itself for what it is.

An author is often obscure to the reader because they proceed from the thought to expression than like the reader from the expression to the thought.

Vivre est un maladie dont le sommeil nous soulage toutes les 16 heures. C'est un pallatif. La mort est le remede.

In the fine arts, as in many other things, we know well only what we have not learned.

We take our colors, chameleon-like, from each other.

Society is composed of two great classes, those that have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners.