Power acquired by violence is only an usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.
If not against us, nature is not for us.
Life without a friend is death without a witness.
The mortgage is still in our name but, increasingly, the house is theirs. One diaper, one vote.
France was long a despotism tempered by epigrams.
The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth.
A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language.
Immortality without eternity is a rope with only one end.
Remorse is a violent dyspepsia of the mind.
Having a talent is not enough: one must also have your permission to have it.
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
All autobiographies are lies. I do not mean unconscious, unintentional lies: I mean deliberate lies.
Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
A miracle is the violation of mathematical, divine, immutable, eternal laws. By this very statement, a miracle is a contradiction in terms. A law cannot be immutable and violable at the same time.
The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence.
Fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportions.
You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down.
Prudence and justice tell me that in electricity and steam there is more love for man than in chastity and abstinence from meat.
He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.
We keep seeking our angel, demons come unsought.
Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one.
Fortune sides with he who dares.
America is a mistake, a giant mistake.
The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.
Sleep is when all the unsorted stuff comes flying out as from a dustbin upset in a high wind.
Advice is sometimes transmitted more successfully through a joke than through grave teaching.
All the powers of imagination combine in hypochondria.
Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.
English history is all about men liking their fathers, and American history is all about men hating their fathers and trying to burn down everything they ever did.
Great writers are the saints for the godless.
Our memory and our identity are ever at odds.
Growing older is not upsetting; being perceived as old is.
Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius.
The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes.
Destiny is but a phrase of the weak human heart - the dark apology for every error.
When you are not practicing, remember, someone somewhere is practicing, and when you meet him he will win.
The only difference between a rut and a grave... is in their dimensions.
Time is not a line, but a series of now-points.
Promises are the uniquely human way of ordering the future.
Acting is standing up naked and turning around very slowly.
It was not power that corrupted people, but fools who corrupted power.
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.
Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.
We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest.
True works of art contain their own theory and give us the measurement according to which we should judge them.
