Our greatest fears lie in anticipation.

Love has its own instinct, finding the way to the heart, as the feeblest insect finds the way to its flower, with a will which nothing can dismay nor turn aside.

In Paris every man must have had a love affair. What woman wants something that no other woman ever wanted.

Gentleness in the gait is what simplicity is in the dress. Violent gestures or quick movements inspire involuntary disrespect.

Prostitution and robbery are two living protests, respectively female and male, made by the natural state against the social state.

Suicide, moreover, was at the time in vogue in Paris: what more suitable key to the mystery of life for a skeptical society?

It would be curious to know what leads a man to become a stationer rather than a baker, when he is no longer compelled, as among the Egyptians, to succeed to his father's craft.