“After moral poisoning, one requires physical remedies and a bottle of champagne.”

I do not feel I have wisdom enough yet to love what is ugly.

A wise woman never yields by appointment. It should always be an unforeseen happiness.

I see but one rule: to be clear. If I am not clear, all my world crumbles to nothing.

When intimacy followed love in Italy there were no longer any vain pretensions between two lovers.

There is no such thing as “natural law”: this expression is nothing but old nonsense… Prior to laws, what is natural is only the strength of the lion, or the need of the creature suffering from hunger or cold, in short, need.

All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.

Logic is neither an art nor a science but a dodge.

Only great minds can afford a simple style.

If you think of paying court to the men in power, your eternal ruin is assured.

Napoleon was indeed the man sent by God to help the youth of France! Who is to take his place?

The pleasures of love are always in proportion to our fears.

The first qualification for a historian is to have no ability to invent.

Prudery is a kind of avarice, the worst of all.

To describe happiness is to diminish it.

Friendship has its illusions no less than love.

Sometimes the impact of Mozart’s music is so immediate that the vision in the mind remains blurred and incomplete, while the soul seems to be directly invaded, drenched in wave upon wave of melancholy.

Drink! for you know not when you came, nor why; Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.

Whoever drinks beer, he is quick to sleep; whoever sleeps long, does not sin; whoever does not sin, enters Heaven! Thus, let us drink beer!

I found myself being more and more involved with people who were rejected by society – with drug addicts, alcoholism, battered this, battered that – and I found an affinity there.

All it takes is one drink to mess with the way you drive – it clouds your judgment and slows your reflexes. Don’t take any chances. It just isn’t worth it.

This is one night I wish I smoked and drank.

Give my people plenty of beer, good beer, and cheap beer, and you will have no revolution among them.

[On alcohol:] Total abstinence is an impossibility and it will not do to insist on it as a general practice.

When men drink, then they are rich and successful and win lawsuits and are happy and help their friends. Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.