Beauty and wisdom are rarely conjoined.

The mind longs for what it has missed.

Outward beauty is not enough; to be attractive a woman must use words, wit, playfulness, sweet-talk, and laughter to transcend the gifts of nature.

Wisdom and beauty form a very rare combination.

Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.

Nothing is falser than people's preconceptions and ready-made opinions; nothing is sillier than their sham morality.

The world wants to be deceived.

Can't you see that I'm only advising you to beg yourself not to be so dumb

Women are one and all a set of vultures.

A man who is always ready to believe what is told him will never do well, especially a businessman.

Leave your home, O youth, and seek out alien shores. A wider range of life has been ordained for you.

Feel special, because you are.

Two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity.

I doubt very much that writers ever go to therapy. I wouldn't! I imagine that I wouldn't have anything to write about after!

Nothing good will come out with lying.

I think of myself as an ambassador of the arts. In my heart of hearts, I know the world would be a more peaceful, tender place if we were more moved by the poetry around us.

Let each look to himself and see what God wants of him and attend to this, leaving all else alone.

Each of us carries some wisdom waiting to be discovered at the center of our experience. Everything we meet, if faced and held, reveals a part of that wisdom.

I was born in France. My father was a renowned French philosopher and journalist, and my mother was a painter. So I grew up in Parisian intellectual circles.

I don't have a clue why I'm famous, either. But I didn't make myself famous. I'm not doing it; you are doing it.

Give me a different set of mothers and I will give you a different world