He flattered himself on being a man without any prejudices; and this pretension itself is a very great prejudice

It was one of the liest and heaviest feelings of my life to feel that I was no longer a boy. From that moment I began to grow old in my own esteem -and in...

It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel.

That man is prudent who neither hopes nor fears anything from the uncertain events of the future.

The future is a convenient place for dreams

The truth is that life is delicious, horrible, charming, frightful, sweet, bitter, and that is everything.

J’ai toujours préféré la folie des passions à la sagesse de l’indifférence.

I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.

Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.

Devout believers are safeguarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal one.

If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.

We live too much in books and not enough in nature, and we are very much like the simpleton of a Pliny the Younger, who went on studying a Greek author while before his eyes...

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

I sought out the laws which govern nature, solid or ethereal, and after much pondering I perceived that the Universe had not been formed as its pretended Creator would have us believe; I knew that...

Time deals gently only with those who take it gently.

You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free, no one ever will. Chance is the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.

Silence is the wit of fools.

For the majority of people, though they do not know what to do with this life, long for another that shall have no end.

I would define a book as a work of magic whence escape, all kinds of images to trouble the souls and change the hearts of men

Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have left me.

The wonder is, not that the field of stars is so vast, but that man has measured it