Each of our passions, even love, has a stomach that must not be overloaded. We must in everything write the word 'finis' in time; we must restrain ourselves, when it becomes urgent; we must draw the bolt on the appetite, play a fantasia on the violin, then break the strings with our own hand. The Wise man is he who knows when and how to stop.

Let us leave to the brain what belongs to it, and agree that the work of the men of genius is of the superhuman, the offspring of man.

Diamonds are to be found only in the darkness of the earth, and truth in the darkness of the mind.

Men like me are impossible until the day when they become necessary.

We are reassured almost as foolishly as we are alarmed; human nature is so constituted.

The soul helps the body, and at certain moments raises it. It is the only bird that sustains its cage.

I'd like a drink. I desire to forget life. Life is a hideous invention by somebody I don't know. It doesn't last, and it's good for nothing. You break your neck simply living.