"There are some days when I think I'm going to die from an overdose of satisfaction."

"Repulsion is the sentry that guards the gate to all that we most desire."

"The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant."

"It is not necessary for the public to know whether I am joking or whether I am serious, just as it is not necessary for me to know it myself."

"There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad."

"The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot."

"For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?"

"When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you."

"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens."

"Heaven endures and the earth last a long time because they do not live for themselves."

"Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."

"The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it."