The color of truth is gray.

Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue.

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.

It is not becoming to lay to virtue the weariness of old age.

Understanding is the beginning of approving.

Too chaste an adolescence makes for a dissolute old age. It is doubtless easier to give up something one has known than something one imagines.

The truth is that as soon as we are no longer obliged to earn our living, we no longer know what to do with our life and recklessly squander it.

The great artist is one whom constraint exalts, for whom the obstacle is a springboard.

It is unthinkable for a Frenchman to arrive at middle age without having syphilis and the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

Prejudices are the props of civilization.

So long as we live among men, let us cherish humanity.

It is better to fail at your own life than to succeed at someone else's.

Know that joy is rarer, more difficult, and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all-important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation.

I owe much to my friends; but, all things considered, it strikes me that I owe even more to my enemies. The real person springs life under a sting even better than under a caress.

Existing is occupation enough.

The thing I am most aware of is my limits. And this is natural; for I never, or almost never, occupy the middle of my cage; my whole being surges toward the bars.

Most often people seek in life occasions for persisting in their opinions rather than for educating themselves.

Man! The most complex of creatures, and for this reason the most dependant of creatures. On everything that has formed you, you may depend. Do not balk at this apparent slavery....a debtor to many, you pay for your advantages by the same number of dependencies. Understand that independence is a form of poverty; that many things claim you, that many also claim kinship with you.

I have my own virtue, which I am constantly cultivating and refining by teaching myself not to tolerate in me or my surroundings anything but the exquisite.

Man's responsibility increases as that of the gods decreases.