The art of motherhood involves much silent, unobtrusive self-denial, an hourly devotion which finds no detail too minute.

There is nothing original; all is reflected light.

Let passion reach a catastrophe and it submits us to an intoxicating force far more powerful than the niggardly irritation of wine or of opium. The lucidity our ideas then achieve, and the delicacy of our overly exalted sensations, produce the strangest and most unexpected effects.

It is as absurd to say that a man can't love one woman all the time as it is to say that a violinist needs several violins to play the same piece of music.

A girl fresh from a boarding school may perhaps be a virgin but no! she is never chaste.

Nature endows woman alternately with a particular strength which helps her to suffer and a weakness which counsels her to be resigned.

Tradesmen regard an author with a mixed feeling of terror, compassion and curiosity.