It is not hope but despair that gives us the measure of our ambitions. We may yield secretly to beautiful poems of hope but grief looms start and stripped of all veils.

Women, when they have made a sheep of a man, always tell him that he is a lion with a will of iron.

No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman.

How did you get back?' asked Vautrin. 'I walked,' replied Eugene. 'I wouldn't like half-pleasures, myself,' observed the tempter. 'I'd want to go there in my own carriage, have my own box, and come back in comfort. All or nothing, that's my motto.' 'And a very good one,' said Madame Vauquer.

Among fifty percent of your married couples, the husband worries very little about what his wife is doing, provided she is doing all he wishes.

Noble passions are like vices: the more they are satisfied, the greater they grow, Mothers and gamblers are insatiable.

Do you know what is the hardest thing in life? To make a choice.