Both in the lower and the middle classes the wiseacres urge young men 'to think it over' before taking the decisive step. Thus they foster the delusion that the choice of a wife or husband may be governed by a certain number of accurately weighable pros and cons. This is a crude delusion on the part of common sense.

Fallen myths can instill venom.

Romance only comes into existence where love is fatal, frowned upon and doomed by life itself.

Animals do feel like us, also joy, love, fear and pain but they cannot grasp the spoken word. It is our obligation to take their part and continue to resist the people who profit by them, who slaughter them and who torture them.

Passion and marriage are essentially irreconcilable. Their origins and their ends make them mutually exclusive. Their co-existence in our midst constantly raises insoluble problems, and the strife thereby engendered constitutes a persistent danger for every one of our social safeguards.

What stirs lyrical poets to their finest flights is neither the delight of the senses nor the fruitful contentment of the settled couple; not the satisfaction of love, but its passion. And passion means suffering.

Why should neurotic, selfish, immature people suddenly become angels when they fall in love ... ?