“The bad gives rise to the good, the good inspires the better, the better produces the excellent, the excellent is followed by the bizarre”

Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.

Only God and some few rare geniuses can keep forging ahead into novelty.

Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.

In order to get as much fame as one’s father one has to much more able than he.

Only passions, and great passions, can raise the soul to great things. Without them there is no sublimity, either in morals or in creativity. Art returns to infancy, and virtue becomes small-minded.

Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: ‘My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.’ This stranger is a theologian.

Oh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them.

There is only one virtue, justice; only one duty, to be happy; only one corollary, not to overvalue life and not to fear death.

Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.

You can be sure that a painter reveals himself in his work as much as and more than a writer does in his.

When we know to read our own hearts, we acquire wisdom of the heartsof others.

There are cats and cats.

It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.

A nation which thinks that it is belief in God and not good law which makes people honest does not seem to me very advanced.

The man who first pronounced the barbarous word God ought to have been immediately destroyed.

For me, my thoughts are my prostitutes.

For there is a VOID in things; a truth which it will be useful for you, in reference to many points, to know; and which will prevent you from wandering in doubt.

The sum of all sums is eternity.

What a wonderful thing it is to have a good friend. He identifies your innermost desires, and spares you the embarrassment of disclosing them to him yourself.

It is wisdom to think upon anything before we execute it.

I carry you do deep inside my heart that with every heartbeat I hear an echo of your name.

Life is good, after all…and that’s what stays with me, even now, even when I’m about to be packed off to Poland.

You can call on each other / and count on each other … / because each other / is all you have.

You will not be a chip the richer.