“The only unhappiness is a life of boredom.”

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.

Any man who talks about his love affairs thereby proves he is ignorant of love and is moved only by vanity.

On a cold winter morning a cigar fortifies the soul.

Beauty is nothing but a promise of happiness.

In love, unlike most other passions, the recollection of what you have had and lost is always better than what you can hope for in the future.

Throw a stick, and the servile dog wheezes and pants and shambles to bring it to you. Do the same before a cat, and he will eye you with coolly polite and somewhat bored amusement.

My nervous system is a shattered wreck, and I am absolutely bored and listless save when I come upon something which peculiarly interests me.

In order to live free and happily you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.

I hate being in boring fights. It frustrates me.

Perhaps the world’s second worst crime is boredom. The first is being a bore.

I mean, it saves you from ultimately from the boredom of having one point of view, like being locked in a room with nothing but your own point of view, your own references.

What strange impulse is it which induces otherwise truthful people to say they like music when they do not, and thus expose themselves to hours of boredom?

We experience boredom, which is nothing elses than the feeling of unease that take hold of us when our spirit is not absorbed by the mirages of life.