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

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not.

One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.

A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.

We should enjoy this summer, flower by flower, as if it were to be the last one we’ll see.

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

Complete possession is proved only by giving. All you are unable to give possesses you.

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.

True intelligence very readily conceives of an intelligence superior to its own; and this is why truly intelligent men are modest.

Change is inevitable and the ultimate way of life. Change creates new opportunities for new beauties in life.

The Kingdom of God is, in reality, the mental kingdom of a conscientious, compassionate and courageous human.

The hardest choices in life aren't between what's right and what's wrong but between what's right and what's best.

We live in a society that worships youth. On television, in magazines, in advertisements and on billboards, what sells and what is sold to us is youth.

One saves oneself much pain, by taking pains; much trouble, by taking trouble.

Thou shall know by experience how salt the savor is of others' bread, and how sad a path it is to climb and descend another's stairs.

The Elizabethan age might be better named the beginning of the smoking era.

You are writing for your contemporaries - not for Posterity. If you are lucky, your contemporaries will become Posterity.

Mentally ill people come from all belief systems.

Aphorisms are portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feeling.