I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing

You have the army of mediocrities followed by the multitude of fools. As the mediocrities and the fools always form the immense majority, it is impossible for them to elect an intelligent government.

Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.

Words dazzle and deceive because they are mimed by the face. But black words on a white page are the soul laid bare.

The past attracts me, the present frightens me, because the future is death.

A sick thought can devour the body's flesh more than fever or consumption.

Of all the passions, the only one that seems respectable to me is the passion for food

It is the lives we encounter that make life worth living.

There is only one good thing in life, and that is love. And how you misunderstand it! how you spoil it! You treat it as something solemn like a sacrament, or something to be bought, like a dress.

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.

Every government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck.

Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says, some women may feel?

Things that are too easily achieved don't inspire anyone.

Whatso'er we perpetrate We do but row we are steered by fate.

As you know, the business is cyclic with styles. It's no different from clothing styles.

There are no easy choices. Easy choices are long gone.

Don't misquote me as wanting to hurt homosexual people in any way. That would be a dastardly lie.

Our changing climate has changed our politics.

I don't really understand the natural world, I admire it and am a little bit afraid of its power.

What a man takes in by contemplation, that he pours out in love.

The stronger always succeeds.