Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
The color of truth is grey.
What would a narrative of happiness be like? All that can be described is what prepares it, and then what destroys it.
Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.
Great authors are admirable in this respect: in every generation they make for disagreement. Through them we become aware of our differences.
It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves - in finding themselves.
Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.
Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.
It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking to it that one overcomes it; often it is by working on the one next to it. Some things and some people have to be approached obliquely, at an angle.
The want of logic annoys. Too much logic bores. Life eludes logic, and everything that logic alone constructs remains artificial and forced.
Know thyself. A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever studies himself arrest his own development. A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.
It is unthinkable for a Frenchman to arrive at middle age without having syphilis and the Cross of the Legion of Honor.
The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.
Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. Its their way of falling.
It is good to follow one's own bent, so long as it leads upward.
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.
Old hands soil, it seems, whatever they caress, but they too have their beauty when they are joined in prayer. Young hands were made for caresses and the sheathing of love. It is a pity to make them join too soon.
Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.
Art is the collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.
It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace.
