Man cannot bear his own portrait. The image of his limits and his own determinacy exasperates him, drives him mad.

What is simple is wrong, and what is complicated cannot be understood.

Order always weighs on the individual. Disorder makes him wish for the police or for death. These are two extreme circumstances in which human nature is not at ease.

Science is feasible when the variables are few and can be enumerated; when their combinations are distinct and clear. We are tending toward the condition of science and aspiring to do it. The artist works out his own formulas; the interest of science lies in the art of making science.

Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature.

Whoever wants to accomplish great things must devote to a lot of profound thought to details.

A man is a poet if difficulties inherent in his art provide him with ideas; he is not a poet if they deprive him of ideas.