I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself. Sometimes I am so clever I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.

To live in this world is a rare thing; most people just exist.

Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob. It is through the voice of one crying in the wilderness that the ways of the gods must be prepared.

A woman who cannot make her mistakes charming, is only a female.

To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.

M. Zola is determined to show that, if he has not got genius, he can at least be dull.

The good we get from art is not what we learn from it; it is what we become through it.