Princes enjoy themselves like children in the company of ordinary human beings.

If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion.

A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world.

I feel sure that coups d'état would go much better if there were seats, boxes, and stalls so that one could see what was happening and not miss anything.

Debauchery is perhaps an act of despair in the face of infinity.

A poet is a man who puts up a ladder to a star and climbs it while playing a violin.

People don't like the true and simple; they like fairy tales and humbug.

Historians tell the story of the past, novelists the story of the present.

As a general truth, it is safe to say that any picture that produces a moral impression is a bad picture.

Barbarism is needed every four or five hundred years to bring the world back to life. Otherwise it would die of civilization.

There are only two great currents in the history of mankind: the baseness which makes conservatives and the envy which makes revolutionaries.

Sometimes it's better to stop trying to make sense of things. Life isn't clear cut, there are always gray areas.

Greatness can only brought through time.

Capitalism: Teach a man to fish, but the fish he catches aren't his. They belong to the person paying him to fish, and if he's lucky, he might get paid enough to buy a few fish for himself.

The Edge... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.

When I see these young girls who are dreaming the dream that I'm living, it's very very exciting and it puts a big smile on my face.

This is your life. Now go make it the one you've always wanted.

It is the chief characteristic of the religion of science that it works.

I would rather be a babysitter than a nursemaid

Being a woman is a very powerful thing, I think, and you don't want to abuse that.

I hope there is something worthy in my writings and not merely the novelty of a black face associated with the power to rhyme that has attracted attention.