“A man who is half an idiot, but who keeps a sharp lookout and acts prudently all his life, often enjoys the pleasure of triumphing over men of more imagination than he.”

A novel is a mirror carried along a main road.

People are less self-conscious in the intimacy of family life and during the anxiety of a great sorrow. The dazzling varnish of an extreme politeness is then less in evidence, and the true qualities of the heart regain their proper proportions.

Perhaps men who cannot love passionately are those who feel the effect of beauty most keenly; at any rate this is the strongest impression women can make on them.

Women prefer emotions to reasoning.

It is not enough for a landscape to be interesting in itself. Eventually there must be a moral and historic interest.

The Russians imitate French ways, but always at a distance of fifty years.

Wounded pride can take a rich young man far who is surrounded by flatterers since birth.

Now that the steam engine rules the world, a title is an absurdity, still I am all dressed up in this title. It will crush me if Ido not support it. The title attracts attention to myself.

To seem sorrowful is not in good taste: You’re supposed to seem bored.

The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God.

I think no woman I have had ever gave me so sweet a moment, or at so light a price, as the moment I owe to a newly heard musical phrase.

I see but one rule: to be clear.

Every great action is extreme when it is undertaken. Only after it has been accomplished does it seem possible to those creatures of more common stuff.

A woman of generous character will sacrifice her life a thousand times over for her lover, but will break with him for ever over a question of pride.

God’s only excuse is that he does not exist.

Indeed, man has two different beings inside him. What devil thought of that malicious touch?

If you only enjoy the chase I’m not racing anymore, I’ve set my own pace.

There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.

Don’t be serious, enjoy life as it comes.

Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving birth — look at the dying man’s struggle at his last extremity, and then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus could be intended for enjoyment.

Through it, all smile and try to enjoy life through the good times and bad.

No one in life can enjoy peace until they know the meaning of it.

Sometimes we get so caught up in our daily lives that we forget to take the time out to enjoy the beauty in life.

The music we do is for people to enjoy, dance and sing to it.