“All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.”

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?

Women are always eagerly on the lookout for any emotion.

In our calling, we have to choose; we must make our fortune either in this world or in the next, there is no middle way.

When men drink, then they are rich and successful and win lawsuits and are happy and help their friends. Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.

Opinions mean nothing; they may be beautiful or ugly, clever or foolish, anyone can embrace or reject them.

Fear is the destructive energy in man. It withers the mind, it distorts thought, it leads to all kinds of extraordinarily clever and subtle theories, absurd superstitions, dogmas, and beliefs.

Here lies one who knew how to get around him, men who were cleverer than himself

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.

What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.

Fools lie, clever men stick to the truth.

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment is intuition.