The election of a deputy to the Legislature offers a noble and majestic spectacle comparable only to the delivery of a child. It involves the same efforts, the same impurities, the same laceration, and the same triumph.

At fifteen, beauty and talent do not exist; there can only be promise of the coming woman.

Some day you will find out that there is far more happiness in another's happiness than in your own.

A country is strong which consists of wealthy families, every member of whom is interested in defending a common treasure; it is weak when composed of scattered individuals, to whom it matters little whether they obey seven or one, a Russian or a Corsican, so long as each keeps his own plot of land, blind in their wretched egotism, to the fact that the day is coming when this too will be torn from them.

It's catastrophies which turn wise and strong people into philosophers.

We do not attach ourselves lastingly to anything that has not cost us care, labor or longing.

Once she has committed sin, there is nothing left for the Protestant woman, whereas the Catholic Church, hope of forgiveness makes a woman sublime.