The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.

The rude beginnings of every art acquire a greater celebrity than the art in perfection; he who first played the fiddle was looked upon as a demigod.

To pray to God is to flatter oneself that with words one can alter nature.

You must have the devil in you to succeed in the arts.

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.

I also know that we must cultivate our garden. For when man was put in the Garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum, to work; which proves that man was not born for rest.

Let us therefore reject all superstition in order to become more human; but in speaking against fanaticism, let us not imitate the fanatics: they are sick men in delirium who want to chastise their doctors. Let us assuage their ills, and never embitter them, and let us pour drop by drop into their souls the divine balm of toleration, which they would reject with horror if it were offered to them all at once.