The prodigality of millionaires is comparable only to their greed of gain. Let some whim or passion seize them and money is of no account. In fact these Croesuses find whims and passions harder to come by than gold.

Imagination helps the realism of every detail, and only sees the beauties of the work.

Coffee falls into the stomach... ideas begin to move, things remembered arrive at full gallop... the shafts of wit start up like sharp-shooters, similes arise, the paper is covered with ink...

Love and work have the virtues of making a man pretty indifferent to anything else.

In love, what a woman mistakes for disgust is actually clearsightedness. If she does not admire a man, she scorns him.

There are no principles; there are only events. There is no good and bad, there are only circumstances.

The habits of every animal are, at least in the eyes of man, constantly similar in all ages. But the habits, the clothes, the words and the dwelling of a prince, a banker, an artist, a bourgeois, a priest and a pauper, are wholly dissimilar and change at the will of civilizations.