Virtue, perhaps, is nothing more than politeness of soul.

First love is a kind of vaccination which saves a man from catching the complaint the second time.

True love is mixed up with birdlike squabbles, in which the disputants wound each other to the quick; but a quarrel without animus is, on the contrary, apiece of flattery to the dupe's conceit.

Mud, raised by hurricanes, wells up in the noblest and purest of hearts.

All men can bear a familiar, definite misfortune better than the cruel alternations of a fate which, from one moment to another, brings excessive joy or sorrow.

The endless legacy of the past to the present is the secret source of human genius.

The fashions we call English in Paris are French in London, and vice versa. Franco-British hostility vanishes when it comes to questions of words and clothing. God save the King is a tune composed by Lully for a chorus in a play by Racine.