It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion.

Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.

It is only the poor who pay cash, and that not from virtue, but because they are refused credit.

Nature has no principles. She makes no distinction between good and evil.

It is well for the heart to be naive and the mind not to be.

The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.

Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream.

Ignorance and error are necessary to life, like bread and water.

Innocence most often is a good fortune and not a virtue.

Devout believers are safeguarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal one.

An education which does not cultivate the will is an education that depraves the mind.

The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which will last forever.

It is better to understand little than to misunderstand a lot.

That man is prudent who neither hopes nor fears anything from the uncertain events of the future.

If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.

A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.

Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.

Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have left me.

Nine tenths of education is encouragement.

To imagine is everything, to know is nothing at all.

There are very honest people who do not think that they have had a bargain unless they have cheated a merchant.

History books that contain no lies are extremely dull.

If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool.

I thank fate for having made me born poor. Poverty taught me the true value of the gifts useful to life.

We do not know what to do with this short life, yet we want another which will be eternal.

An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't.

Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free, no one ever will. Chance is the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.

Of all the sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.

Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.

In art as in love, instinct is enough.

The poor have to labour in the face of the majestic equality of the law, which forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

Only men who are not interested in women are interested in women's clothes. Men who like women never notice what they wear.

Lovers who love truly do not write down their happiness.

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.

You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.

What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster!

War will disappear only when men shall take no part whatever in violence and shall be ready to suffer every persecution that their abstention will bring them. It is the only way to abolish war.

Silence is the wit of fools.

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.

The truth is that life is delicious, horrible, charming, frightful, sweet, bitter, and that is everything.

When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.

Until one has loved an animal a part of one's soul remains unawakened.

The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.

What frightens us most in a madman is his sane conversation.

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

We reproach people for talking about themselves; but it is the subject they treat best.