My strength has not equaled my mad ambition. I have remained obscure; I have done worse -- I have touched success, and allowed it to escape me.

I know that I have found fulfillment. I have an object in life, a task ... a passion.

There is but on virtue--the eternal sacrifice of self.

Oblivion is the flower that grows best on graves.

We must love stupid people better than ourselves; are they not the really unfortunate ones of this world? Do not people without taste and without ideal grow constantly weary, rejoicing in nothing, and being quite useless here below?

Let us accept truth, even when it surprises us and alters our views.

If they are ignorant, they are despised, if learned, mocked. In love they are reduced to the status of courtesans. As wives they are treated more as servants than as companions. Men do not love them: they make use of them, they exploit them, and expect, in that way, to make them subject to the law of fidelity.