Love is the reduction of the universe to the single being, and the expansion of a single being, even to God

First love is a kind of vaccination which saves a man from catching the complaint the second time.

Woman is closer to angels than man because she knows how to mingle an infinite tenderness with the most absolute compassion.

Old maids, having never bent their temper or their lives to other lives and other tempers, as woman's destiny requires, have for the most part a mania for making everything about them bend to them.

Pure herring oil is the port wine of English cats

How did you get back?' asked Vautrin. 'I walked,' replied Eugene. 'I wouldn't like half-pleasures, myself,' observed the tempter. 'I'd want to go there in my own carriage, have my own box, and come back in comfort. All or nothing, that's my motto.' 'And a very good one,' said Madame Vauquer.

Evasion is unworthy of us, and is always the intimate of equivocation.