If it became customary to go out into the street stark naked I should not be the first nor the last to conform. - Denis Diderot

To speak to you frankly, Reader, I find that you are the more wicked of the two of us. How satisfied would I be if it were as easy for me to protect myself from your calumny as it is for you to protect yourself from the boredom or the danger of my work!

How did they meet? By chance, like everybody … Where did they come from? From the nearest place. Where were they going? Do we know where we are going?

I don't think much of these eccentrics. Some people turn them into familiar acquaintances, even friends. Once a year they interest me, when I meet them, because their character stands in contrast to others and they break that fastidious uniformity which our education, our social conventions, and our habitual proprieties have introduced.