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.

Law is a silvery web that lets the big flies pass and catches all the small ones.

Virtue, my pet, is an abstract idea, varying in its manifestations with the surroundings. Virtue in Provence, in Constantinople, in London, and in Paris bears very different fruit, but is none the less virtue.

A lover teaches a wife all her husband has kept from her.

Events are never absolute, their outcome depends entirely upon the individual. Misfortune is a stepping stone for a genius, a piscina for a Christian, a treasure for a man of parts, and an abyss for a weakling.

In intimate family life, there comes a moment when children, willingly or no, become the judges of their parents.

We cannot confront solitude without moral resources.