Virtue in women is perhaps a question of temperament.

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.

The man as he converses is the lover; silent, he is the husband.

The Police and the Society of Jesus posses in common the virtue of never forsaking their enemies as friends.

True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure.

What moralists describe as the mysteries of the human heart are solely the deceiving thoughts, the spontaneous impulses of self-regard. The sudden changes in character, about which so much has been said, are instinctive calculations for the furtherance of our own pleasures. Seeing himself now in his fine clothes, his new gloves and shoes, Eugène de Rastignac forgot his noble resolve. Youth, when it swerves toward wrong, dares not look in the mirror of conscience; maturity has already seen itself there. That is the whole difference between the two phases of life.

Novelty is both delightful and deceptive.