It is a singular fact that most men of action incline to the theory of fatalism, while the greater part of men of thought believe in providence.

Constancy will always be the genius of love, the indication of that strength which constitutes the poet. A man should possess all women in his wife, like those squalid poetasters of the seventeenth century who made fair Irises and dazzling Chloes of their lowly Manons.

Forgetting is the great secret of strong and creative lives.

Numbers are intellectual witnesses that belong only to mankind.

Ah! how much a mother learns from her child! The constant protection of a helpless being forces us to so strict an alliance with virtue, that a woman never shows to full advantage except as a mother. Then alone can her character expand in the fulfillment of all life's duties and the enjoyment of all its pleasures.

Death is as unexpected in his caprice as a courtesan in her disdain; but death is truer – Death has never forsaken any man

A sacrament by virtue of which each imparts nothing but vexations to the other.