To introduce a new play only six weeks after another has been banned is also a way to speak one's piece to the government. It proves that art and liberty can grow back in one night under the clumsy foot which crushes them.

Kings are for nations in their swaddling-clothes: France has attained her majority.

Taste is the common sense of genius.

The miserable's name is Man; he is agonizing in all climes, and he is groaning in all languages.

I didn't believe it could be so monstrous. It's wrong to be so absorbed in divine law as not to perceive human law. Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men tough that unknown thing?

Table talk and Lovers' talk equally elude the grasp; Lovers' talk is clouds, table talk is smoke.

If nobody loved, the sun would go out.