The costliest women are the ones who cost nothing.

I see that you believe in love such as the poets and romancers have represented... The poets represent love as the sculptors design beauty, as the musicians create melody; that is to say, endowed with an exquisite nervous organization, they gather up with discerning ardor the purest elements of life, the most beautiful lines of matter, and the most harmonious voices of nature.... To try to find in real life such love as this, eternal and absolute, is the same thing as to seek on the public squares such a woman as Venus or to expect nightingales to sing the symphonies of Beethoven.

Look at the sun! It’s dry, it’s dead, it needs a drink, it wants blood! And I’ll give it blood!

Oh! my friend, when you feel bursting on your lips the vow of eternal love, do not be afraid to yield, but do not confound wine with intoxication; do not think the cup divine because the draft is of celestial flavor; do not be astonished to find it broken and empty in the evening.

A lively retrospect summons back to us once more our youth, with vivid reflex of its early joys and unstained pleasures.

Man is a pupil, pain is his teacher.

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