Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.

One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.

Preoccupation with money is the great test of small natures, but only a small test of great ones.

We’ve no use for intellectuals in this outfit. What we need is chimpanzees. Let me give you a word of advice: never say a word to us about being intelligent. We will think for you,...

One is a socialist because one used to be one, no longer going to demonstrations, attending meetings, sending in one’s dues, in short, without paying.

To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.

All styles are good except the tiresome kind.

In this country it is a good thing to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.

The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.

In matters of the heart, nothing is true except the improbable.

There are certain times when public opinion is the worst of all opinions.

Society, being codified by man, decrees that woman is inferior; she can do away with this inferiority only by destroying the male’s superiority.

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.

If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.

Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.

Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty.

Man may aspire to virtue, but he cannot reasonably aspire to truth.

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.

Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.

We are rarely proud when we are alone.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

Swallow a toad in the morning and you will encounter nothing more disgusting the rest of the day.

To hell with reality! I want to die in music, not in reason or in prose. People don’t deserve the restraint we show by not going into delirium in front of them. To hell with...

The only freedom supposed to be left to the masses is that of grazing on the ration of simulacra the system distributes to each individual.

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.

The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.

The little may contrast with the great, in painting, but cannot be said to be contrary to it. Oppositions of colors contrast; but there are also colors contrary to each other, that is, which produce...

Love is the emplem of eternity; it confounds all notions of time; effaces all memory of begining, all fear of an end.

When a man and a woman have an overwhelming passion for each other, it seems to me, in spite of such obstacles dividing them as parents or husband, that they belong to each other in...

Art is an attempt to integrate evil.

The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.

It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.

Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.

All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.

The person is always happy who is in the presence of something they cannot know in full. A person as advanced far in the study of morals who has mastered the difference between pride and...

To be totally understanding makes one very indulgent.

It must be admitted that there are some parts of the soul which we must entirely paralyse before we can live happily in this world.

Common sense is not so common.

He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.

A poet is a man who puts up a ladder to a star and climbs it while playing a violin.

Experience is a dim lamp, which only lights the one who bears it.

Political organizations have slowly substituted themselves for the Churches as the places for believing practices. Politics has once again become religious.

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.