They did not understand that war, which trained courage and founded the cities of barbarous and ignorant men, brings to victor himself but ruin and misery, and is nothing but a horrible and stupid crime when nations are united together by common bonds of art, science, and trade.

Science neither cares to please nor to displease. She is inhuman. It is not science but poetry that charms and consoles. And that is why poetry is more necessary than science.

You cry, "give us war!" You are visionaries. When will you become thinkers? The thinkers do not look for power and strength from any of the dreams that constitute military art: tactics, strategies, fortifications, artillery and all that rubbish. They do no believe in war, which is a fantasy; they believe in chemistry, which is a science. They know the way to put victory into an algebraic formula.

Chance is the pseudonym God uses when He'd rather not sign His own name.

Men are not created to know, men are not created to understand ... and our illusions increase with our knowledge.