Poets and men of action differ: the former yield to their feelings in order to reproduce them in lively colors, and therefore judge only ex post facto; the latter feel and judge at one and the same time.

Cruelty and fear shake hands together.

Events are never absolute, their outcome depends entirely upon the individual.

Tradesmen regard an author with a mixed feeling of terror, compassion and curiosity.

Women are tenacious, and all of them should be tenacious of respect; without esteem they cannot exist; esteem is the first demand that they make of love.

The human heart may find here and there a resting-place short of the highest height of affection, but we seldom stop in the steep, downward slope of hatred.

The more illegal a profit, the more tenaciously a man clings to it.