Proof that they do not understand the republic is that in their fine promises for universal suffrage, they forgot women.

As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.

The cult of art gives pride; one never has too much of it.

It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure.

January, month of empty pockets! let us endure this evil month, anxious as a theatrical producer’s forehead.

Risk is essential. There is not growth of inspiration in staying within what is safe and comfortable. Once you find out what you do best, why not try something else?

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

Behind every great fortune there is a crime.

Human speech is a cracked cauldron on which we knock out tunes for dancing bears, when we wish to conjure pity from the stars.

The fool is like those people who think themselves rich with little.

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.

History books that contain no lies are extremely dull.

Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.

One must always hope when one is desperate, and doubt when one hopes.

‘Til the infallibility of human judgements shall have been proved to me, I shall demand the abolition of the penalty of death.

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

The best religion is the most tolerant.

The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close yourself up in Art and to count for nothing all the rest.

The faster the word sticks to the thought, the more beautiful is the effect.

Happiness is ideal, it is the work of the imagination.

I am going away with him to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name, and where I shall be born again with a new face and an untried heart.

Success is a process, a quality of mind and way of being, an outgoing affirmation of life.

Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream.

The more you judge, the less you love.

I am a man-pen. I feel through the pen, because of the pen.

To execute great things, one should live as though one would never die.