Necessity is often the spur to genius.
Carelessness in dressing is moral suicide.
A Creole woman is like a child, she wants to possess everything immediately; like a child, she would set fire to a house in order to fry an egg. In her languor, she thinks of nothing; when passionately aroused, she thinks of any act possible or impossible.
By and large, women have a faith and a morality peculiar to themselves; they believe in the reality of everything that serves their interest and their passions.
Most geometricians, chemists, mathematicians, and great scientists submit religion to reason only to discover a problem as unsolvable as that of squaring a circle.
For businessmen, the world is a bale of banknotes in circulation; for most young men, it is a woman; for some women, it is a man; and for others it may be a salon, a coterie, a part of town or a whole city.
In Paris, the greatest expression of personal satisfaction known to man is the smirk on the face of a male, highly pleased with himself as he leaves the boudoir of a lady.
The love of nature is the only love that does not deceive human hopes.
Virtue, perhaps, is nothing more than politeness of soul.
Everything is bilateral in the domain of thought. Ideas are binary. Janus is the myth of criticism and the symbol of genius. Only God is triangular!
During the great storms of our lives we imitate those captains who jettison their weightiest cargo.
Like hunger, physical love is a necessity. But man’s appetite for amour is never so regular or so sustained as his appetite for the delights of the table.
Men are so made that they can resist sound argument, and yet yield to a glance.
There is nothing original; all is reflected light.
Are not our noblest feelings as it were the poems of our will.
Generally our confidences move downward rather than upward; in our secret affairs, we employ our inferiors much more than our bettors.
A great writer is nothing less than a martyr who does not die.
Now literary success can only be won in solitude by persevering labor.
Like most young people, these two attributed to the world their own intelligence and virtues. Youth who knows no failure has no mercy on the faults of other people; but it has also a sublime faith in them.
Great minds always tend to see virtue in misfortune.