A year at the breast is quite enough; children who are suckled longer are said to grow stupid, and I am all for popular sayings.

Kindness is not without its rocks ahead. People are apt to put it down to an easy temper and seldom recognize it as the secret striving of a generous nature; whilst, on the other hand, the ill-natured get credit for all the evil they refrain from.

Our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation.

A girl fresh from a boarding school may perhaps be a virgin but no! she is never chaste.

Economized love is never real love.

Holding this book in your hand, sinking back in your soft armchair, you will say to yourself: perhaps it will amuse me. And after you have read this story of great misfortunes, you will no doubt dine well, blaming the author for your own insensitivity, accusing him of wild exaggeration and flights of fancy. But rest assured: this tragedy is not a fiction. All is true.

When there is an old maid in the house, a watchdog is unnecessary.