"Nature is a word, an allegory, a mold, an embossing, if you will."

"I should like the fields tinged with red, the rivers yellow and the trees painted blue. Nature has no imagination."

"Nature is a temple in which living columns sometimes emit confused words. Man approaches it through forests of symbols, which observe him with familiar glances."

"Nature can counsel nothing but crime."

"La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles; L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers."

"Woman is natural, that is to say, abominable."

"Nature... is nothing but the inner voice of self-interest."

"There exist certain individuals who are, by nature, given purely to contemplation and are utterly unsuited to action, and who, nevertheless, under a mysterious and unknown impulse, sometimes act with a speed which they themselves would have thought beyond them."