Before receiving your instruction, I must tell you what happened to me one day. I had just had a closet built at the end of my garden. I heard a mole arguing with a cockchafer; 'Here's a fine structure,' said the mole, 'it must have been a very powerful mole who did this work.' 'You're joking,' said the cockchafer; 'it's a cockchafer full of genius who is the architect of this building.' From that moment I resolved never to argue.

Know that the secret of the arts is to correct nature.

We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.

He was not the greatest of men but he was the greatest of kings.

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

Give me a few minutes to talk away my face and I can seduce the Queen of France.

All is a miracle. The stupendous order of nature, the revolution of a hundred millions of worlds around a million of stars, the activity of light, the life of all animals, all are grand and perpetual miracles.