"Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable."
"Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game."
"Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us."
"We are rarely proud when we are alone."
"What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy."
"He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it."
"All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God."
"It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge."
"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."
"Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination."
"Common sense is not so common."
"The superfluous, a very necessary thing."
"God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well."
