Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.

Reforms in Russia are very tragic, but they always end in a farce.

The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it. The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development. The error of Louis XIV was that he thought human nature would always be the same. The result of his error was the French Revolution. It was an admirable result.

Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak.... They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.

What fire does not destroy, it hardens

Disobedience is man's original virtue.

The things one feels absolutely certain about are never true. That is the fatality of faith, and the lesson of romance.