We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves. The consciousness of wrong-doing makes us irritable, and our heart, in its cunning, quarrels with what is outside it, in order that it may deafen the clamor within.

The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret.

The stationary condition is the beginning of the end

The mind must have for ballast the clear conception of duty, if it is not to fluctuate between levity and despair.

A woman is sometimes fugitive, irrational, indeterminable, illogical and contradictory. A great deal of forbearance ought to be shown her, and a good deal of prudence exercised with regard to her, for she may bring about innumerable evils without knowing it. Capable of all kinds of devotion, and of all kinds of treason, monster incomprehensible, raised to the second power, she is at once the delight and the terror of man.

Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.

Man is a passion which brings a will into play, which works an intelligence.