"Love is always love, come whence it may. A heart that beats at your approach, an eye that weeps when you go away are things so rare, so sweet, so precious that they must never be despised."

"There is only one good thing in life, and that is love. And how you misunderstand it! how you spoil it! You treat it as something solemn like a sacrament, or something to be bought, like a dress."

"You have the army of mediocrities followed by the multitude of fools. As the mediocrities and the fools always form the immense majority, it is impossible for them to elect an intelligent government."

"Let them respect my convictions, and I will respect theirs!"

"Great minds that are healthy are never considered geniuses, while this sublime qualification is lavished on brains that are often inferior but are slightly touched by madness."

"I took the book from him reverently, and I gazed at these forms incomprehensible to me, but which revealed the immortal thoughts of the greatest shatterer of dreams who had ever dwelt on earth."

"I have come to the conclusion that the bed comprehends our whole life; for we were born in it, we live in it, and we shall die in it."

"There are in France some fifty thousand young men of good birth and fairly well off who are encouraged to live a life of complete idleness. They must either cease to exist or must come to see that there can be no happiness, no health even, without regular daily labor of some sort … The need of work is in me."

"I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a thunderbolt."

"La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure."

"But there is more than detachment in La Fontaine. His attitude to life, being a mature one, is therefore complex: a rich blend of sympathy, tenderness and irony. Even his detachment has subtle shades and a phlegmatic grace which is particular to him."

"The Fables belong to comedy; the pure comic vision, different in that respect from that noble hybrid, satire, requires that the reader should appreciate it intellectually without being emotionally involved. In La Fontaine, as in Molière, the detachment of the comic vision prevents the tragic element from making its impact on the reader directly, although the upsetting implications are there. The device of using animals as protagonists makes it easier to assume this attitude of detachment: while we watch the adventures of the animal, although they are our own adventures, we benefit from our ordinary feeling of superiority over the animals; and this feeling of being superior and of being different, which we automatically have, helps us to watch the tragedy of the world from the point of view of the gods."

"There is no trace of bitterness in his poetry; one would almost say, there is no indignation before the evils of the world. Of course there is a reaction of indignation in the mind of the reader. La Fontaine knows very well that the reader will be on the side of the lamb against the wolf: there is no need for him to express his own indignation and he never does. In this he differs from those moralists who wrote—and at times magnificently—what one could call ‘la littérature de l’indignation’; in the works of the English moralists, Pope and Swift, and of La Bruyère also, we can perceive the controlled reactions of their wounded sensibility, their revolt against unfairness and cruelty and a burning hankering after some sort of justice. La Fontaine's attitude is that of detachment."

"We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all."

""They are too green", he said, "and only good for fools"."

"No path of flowers leads to glory."

"Ventre affamé n'a point d'oreilles."

"Il connaît l’univers, et ne se connaît pas."

"L'homme est ainsi bâti: Quand un sujet l'enflamme L'impossibilité disparaît à son âme."

"Les gens sans bruit sont dangereux."

"Laissez dire les sots: le savoir a son prix."

"On rencontre sa destinée Souvent par des chemins qu’on prend pour l’éviter."

"Rien n'est si dangereux qu'un ignorant ami; Mieux vaudrait un sage ennemi."

"Rien ne pèse tant qu'un secret."

"La mort ne surprend point le sage: Il est toujours prêt à partir."

"Plus fait douceur que violence."

"L’enseigne fait la chalandise."

"The fly of the coach."

"Sur les ailes du Temps la tristesse s'envole."

"Aide-toi, le ciel t'aidera."

"Rien ne sert de courir; il faut partir à point."

"Garde-toi, tant que tu vivras, De juger les gens sur la mine."

"De la peau du lion l'âne s'étant vêtu, Était craint partout à la ronde."

"Il ne faut jamais Vendre la peau de l'ours qu'on ne l'ait mis par terre."

"Il n'est rien d'inutile aux personnes de sens."

"Bref, la fortune a toujours tort."

"... ’argent vient-il comme il s’en va ? Je n’y touchois jamais. Dites-moy donc de grace, Reprit l’autre, pourquoy vous vous affligez tant, Puiſque vous ne touchiez jamais à cet argent : Mettez une pierre à la place, Elle vous vaudra tout autant."

"Amour est un étrange maître! Heureux qui peut ne le connaître Que par récit, lui ni ses coups!"

"En toute chose il faut considérer la fin."

"[On] est bien fou de cerveau Qui prétend contenter tout le monde et son père."

"C'est double plaisir de tromper le trompeur."

"Patience et longueur de temps Font plus que force ni que rage."

"Il faut, autant qu'on peut, obliger tout le monde: On a souvent besoin d'un plus petit que soi."

"Les délicats sont malheureux: Rien ne saurait les satisfaire."

"Je plie, et ne romps pas."

"A l'oeuvre on connaît l'artisan."

"Plutôt souffrir que mourir, C'est la devise des hommes."

"Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire."

"Everyone calls himself a friend, but only a fool relies on it; nothing is commoner than the name, nothing rarer than the thing."