Vanity and dignity are incompatible with each other; vain women are almost sure to be vulnerable.

I deeply wished I could make the stars all come down and breathe them; disappear in them

Nothing is a sin when you obey the orders of a priest

The most disagreeable thing that your worst enemy says to your face does not approach what your best friends say behind your back.

Few persons enjoy real liberty; we are all slaves to ideas or habits.

Take love as a sober man takes wine; do not become a drunkard. If your mistress is sincere and faithful, love her for that; but if she is not, if she is merely young and beautiful, love her for that; if she is agreeable and spirituelle, love her for that; if she is none of these things but merely loves you, love her for that. Love does not come to us every day.

If you are weak, dependent upon others, inclined to allow yourself to be dominated by opinion, to take root wherever you see a little soil, make for yourself a shield that will resist everything, for if you yield to your weaker nature you will not grow, you will dry up like a dead plant, and you will bear neither fruit nor flowers.