The history books which contain no lies are extremely tedious

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool.

In art as in love, instinct is enough.

The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces

Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.

The absurdity of a religious practice may be clearly demonstrated without lessening the numbers of people who indulge in it

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom

Of all the sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.

Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.

The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which will last forever.

Unhappiness does make people look stupid

People who have no weaknesses are terrible; there is no way of taking advantage of them

To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.(From an introductory speech at a session of the Académie Française, December 24, 1896)

You become a good writer just as you become a good joiner: by planing down your sentences

Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.

Make love now, by night and by day, in winter and in summer… You are in the world for that and the rest of life is nothing but vanity, illusion, waste. There is only one...

All writers of confessions from Augustine on down, have always remained a little in love with their sins.

To die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture.

A writer is rarely so well inspired as when he talks about himself

Religion has done love a great servive by making it a sin.

In every well-governed state, wealth is a sacred thing; in democracies it is the only sacred thing

It is only the poor who are forbidden to beg

If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.

We chase dreams and embrace shadows.

It is human nature to think wisely and act foolishly

Christianity has done a great deal for love by making a sin of it.

A good critic is one who narrates the adventures of his mind among masterpieces.

Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.

War will disappear only when men shall take no part whatever in violence and shall be ready to suffer every persecution that their abstention will bring them. It is the only way to abolish war.

When a thing has been said and well said, have no scruple; take it and copy it

Nature has no principles. She makes no distinction between good and evil.

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.

Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he does not wish to sign his work.

The faculty of doubting is rare among men. A few choice spirits carry the germs of it in them, but these do not develop without training.

An education which does not cultivate the will is an education that depraves the mind.

I never go into the country for a change of air and a holiday. I always go instead into the eighteenth century.

The first virtue of all really great men is that they are sincere

A woman must decide between a man who women like, and then have no security, or a man who women don ‘ t like, and have no happiness.

Chance is the pseudonym God uses when He does not want to sign His name.

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.

What frightens us most in a madman is his sane conversation.

Nine tenths of education is encouragement.

All the historical books which contain no lies are extremely tedious

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.

Only men who are not interested in women are interested in women’s clothes. Men who like women never notice what they wear.

It is almost systematically to constitute a natural moral law. Nature has no principles. She furnishes us with no reason to believe that human life is to be respected. Nature, in her indifference, makes no...

It is in the ability to deceive oneself that the greatest talent is shown

If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.

Without the utopians of other times, men would still live in caves, miserable and naked;…utopia is the principle of all progress, adn the essay into a better world.