How natural it is to destroy what we cannot possess, to deny what we do not understand, and to insult what we envy!
Women are ever the dupes or the victims of their extreme sensitiveness.
We are scarcely apt to berate the source of enjoyment.
How can we explain the perpetuity of envy – a vice which yields no return?
There are as many mediocrities exalted through pity as masters decried through envy.
Evasion is unworthy of us, and is always the intimate of equivocation.
The day will dawn when Europe will believe only in the man who tramples her underfoot.
The prodigality of millionaires is comparable only to their greed of gain. Let some whim or passion seize them and money is of no account. In fact these Croesuses find whims and passions harder to come by than gold.
All genuinely noble women prefer truth to falsehood. As the Russians with their Czar, they are unwilling to see their idol degraded; they want to be proud of the domination they accept.
In intimate family life, there comes a moment when children, willingly or no, become the judges of their parents.
Noble hearts are neither jealous nor afraid because jealousy spells doubt and fear spells pettiness.
A grass blade believes that men build palaces for it to grow in. Grass wedges its way between the closest blocks of marble and it brings them down. This power of feeble life which can creep in anywhere is greater than that of the mighty behind their cannons.
Bankers are lynxes. To expect any gratitude from them is equivalent to attempting to move the wolves of the Ukraine to pity in the middle of winter.
All happiness depends on courage and work. I have had many periods of wretchedness, but with energy and above all with illusions, I pulled through them all.
The woman who is about to deceive her husband always carefully thinks out how she is going to act, but she is never logical.
We love because we love.
The fame of surgeons resembles the fame of actors, who live only during their lifetime and whose talent is no longer appreciable once they have disappeared.
Friendships last when each friend thinks he has a slight superiority over the other.
Man is neither good nor bad; he is born with instincts and abilities.
Love passes quickly, and passes like a street Arab, anxious to mark his way with mischief.