“The more a race is governed by its passions, the less it has acquired the habit of cautious and reasoned argument, the more intense will be its love of music.”

Faith, I am no such fool; everyone for himself in this desert of selfishness which is called life.

When you want to court a woman, court her sister first

War was then no longer this noble and unified outburst of souls in love with glory that he had imagined from Napoleon’s proclamations.

To be loved at first sight, a man should have at the same time something to respect and something to pity in his face.

A very small matter, when all is said; only a fool would be concerned about it.

An English traveller relates how he lived upon intimate terms with a tiger; he had reared it and used to play with it, but always kept a loaded pistol on the table.

Signs cannot be represented, in a spy’s report, so damningly as words.

Love is like a fever which comes and goes quite independently of the will. There are no age limits for love.

A novel is like a bow, and the violin that produces the sound is the reader’s soul.

It is difficult to escape from the prevailing disease of one’s generation.

The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.

I call “crystallization” that action of the mind that discovers fresh perfections in its beloved at every turn of events.

A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love.

The more one pleases everybody, the less one pleases profoundly.

One of the traits of genius is not to drag its thought through the rut worn by vulgar minds.

The first virtue of a young man today – that is, for the next fifty years perhaps, as long as we live in fear, and religion has regained its powers – is to be incapable of enthusiasm and not to have much in the way of brains.