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

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

Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream.

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.

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

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