“I would like to be like my father and all the rest of my ancestors who never married.”

I have the knack of easing scruples.

Its as if you think you’d never find Reason and the Sacred intertwined.

I feed on good soup, not beautiful language.

We die only once, and for such a long time.

Human weakness is to desire to know what one does not want to know.

Frenchmen have an unlimited capacity for gallantry and indulge it on every occasion.

My fair one, let us swear an eternal friendship.

Deference and intimacy live far apart.

A lover tries to stand in well with the pet dog of the house.

Music and dance are all you need.

People can be induced to swallow anything, provided it is sufficiently seasoned with praise.

Nearly all men die of their medicines, not of their diseases.

My heavens! I’ve been talking prose for the last forty years without knowing it.

It may cost me twenty thousand francs; but for twenty thousand francs, I will have the right to rail against the iniquity of humanity, and to devote to it my eternal hatred.

The proof of true love is to be unsparing in criticism.

In society one needs a flexible virtue; too much goodness can be blamable.