Travel, like dreams, is a door that opens from the real world into a world that is yet to be discovered

We live always under the weight of the old and odious customs... of our barbarous ancestors.

A lawful kiss is never worth as much as a stolen one.

Conversation. What is it? A Mystery! It's the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all.

She was the temptress who had ensnared the first man, and who still continued her work at damnation; she was the being who is feeble, dangerous, mysteriously troubling. And even more than her body of perdition, he hated her loving soul.

Every government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck.

The past attracts me, the present frightens me, because the future is death.