You see, Mademoiselle, I have experience, I know the world. To pass the time, why don't you ask every passenger to tell you his life's story? And if there is a single one among them who has never cursed his life, who has not often told himself that he was the unhappiest of men, then you may throw me overboard, headfirst!

Religion may be purified. This great work was begun two hundred years ago: but men can only bear light to come in upon them by degrees.

When one man speaks to another man who doesn't understand him, and when a man who's speaking no longer understands, it's metaphysics.

Why, since we are always complaining of our ills, are we constantly employed in redoubling them?

If it's too silly to be said, it can always be sung.

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.

The man who, in a fit of melancholy, kills himself today, would have wished to live had he waited a week.