The greatest events occur without intention playing any part in them; chance makes good mistakes and undoes the most carefully planned undertaking. The world's greatest events are not produced, they happen.

The pleasures of the imagination are as it were only drawings and models which are played with by poor people who cannot afford the real thing.

To be content with life -- or to live merrily, rather --all that is required is that we bestow on all things only a fleeting, superficial glance; the more thoughtful we become the more earnest we grow.

To receive applause for works which do not demand all our powers hinders our advance towards a perfecting of our spirit. It usually means that thereafter we stand still.

Before we blame we should first see whether we cannot excuse.

Man is to be found in reason, God in the passions.

I believe that man is in the last resort so free a being that his right to be what he believes himself to be cannot be contested.

The worst thing you can possibly do is worrying and thinking about what you could have done.

If we make a couple of discoveries here and there we need not believe things will go on like this for ever. Just as we hit water when we dig in the earth, so we discover the incomprehensible sooner or later.

He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage, he won't encounter many rivals.