The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.

The passing moment is all we can be sure of; it is only common sense to extract its utmost value from it.

It needs a good deal of philosophy not to be mortified by the thought of persons who have voluntarily abandoned everything that for the most of us makes life worth living and are devoid of envy of what they have missed. I have never made up my mind whether they are fools or wise men.

The great critic … must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, and the transitoriness of human things.

It is not for nothing that artists have called their works the children of their brains and likened the pains of production to the pains of childbirth.

As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.

By the time a man notices that he is no longer young, his youth has long since left him.