The heart, like the stomach, wants a varied diet.
It is necessary to sleep upon the pillow of doubt.
I know nothing more noble than the contemplation of the world.
Madame Aubain’s servant Felicite was the envy of the ladies of Pont-l’Eveque for half a century.
The citadel of Machaerus rose east of the Dead Sea on a basalt Peak shaped like a cone, girdled by four deep valleys; two about its sides, one in front, and the fourth behind.
Earth has its boundaries, but human stupidity is limitless.
The future is the worst thing about the present.
The faster the word sticks to the thought, the more beautiful is the effect.
The author, in his work, must be like God in the Universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.
Noble characters and pure affections and happy scenes are very comforting things. They’re a refuge from life’s disillusionments.
Happiness is a monstrosity! Punished are those who seek it.
The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism; it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.
I live absolutely like an oyster.
Sometimes I think I’m liquefying like an old Camembert.
As for the piano, the faster her fingers flew over it, the more he marveled. She struck the keys with aplomb and ran from one end of the keyboard to the other without a stop.
Let us not kid ourselves; let us remember that literature is of no use whatever, except in the very special case of somebody’s wishing to become, of all things, a Professor of Literature.
He was bored now when Emma suddenly began to sob on his breast; and his heart, like the people who can only stand a certain amount of music, became drowsy through indifference to the vibrations of a love whose subtleties he could no longer distinguish.
What baffled him was that there should be all this fuss about something so simple as love.
I detest my fellow-beings and do not feel that I am their fellow at all.
Women want you to deceive them: they force you to, and if you resist, they blame you.