Thinking is hard work. One can't bear burdens and ideas at the same time

To write well, to have style ... is to paint. The master faculty of style is therefore the visual memory. If a writer does not see what he describes-countrysides and figures, movements and gestures-how could he have a style, that is originality?

The ever-present phenomenon ceases to exist for our senses. It was a city dweller, or a prisoner, or a blind man suddenly given his sight, who first noted natural beauty.

Of all the sexual aberrations, perhaps the most peculiar is chastity.

Man is the inventor of stupidity.

Man associates ideas not according to logic or verifiable exactitude, but according to his pleasure and interests. It is for this reason that most truths are nothing but prejudices.

We live less and less, and we learn more and more. Sensibility is surrendering to intelligence.