The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.

One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.

If there were only turnips and potatoes in the world, someone would complain that plants grow the wrong way.

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.

To read means to borrow; to create out of one s readings is paying off one's debts.

Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.

He who understands the wise is wise already.

I'm joking when I say I'm the grand-pop of those claiming to be an avatar-messiah or god. But if they're serious, then, I am who I am.

I am not a Jew for Jesus but I am definitely a Jew for Christmas. Christmas is one of the best things you Christians have given us, along with mac and cheese, Bono, croquet and politeness.

I've never been in fashion. Not at all.

I've been married to the same man for all this time. The way we fight sometimes, you can tell.

Those that can't change even their toothbrush and pyjamas are trying to change the world! Let us be serious!

Dressing up is like therapy; I feel better in myself when I've made an effort.

In a successful marriage, there is no such thing as one's way. There is only the way of both, only the bumpy, dusty, difficult, but always mutual path.

Why do I act as I do? To tell you the truth, I have absolutely no idea why. It is simply my nature to act as I act, and that's all I can say.

Most journalists now believe that a person's privacy zone gets smaller and smaller as the person becomes more and more powerful.

The best advice I can give for playing a ball out of water is - don't.