To be happy, a man must love his wife as she chooses to be loved.

To have one's mother-in-law in the country when one lives in Paris, and vice versa, is one of those strokes of luck that one encounters only too rarely.

Among even the happiest married couples there are always moments of regret.

Modesty is the conscience of the body.

To kill a relative of whom you are tired is something. But to inherit his property afterwards, that is genuine pleasure.

What moralist can deny that well-bred and vicious people are much more agreeable than their virtuous counterparts? Having crimes to atone for, they provisionally solicit indulgence by showing leniency toward the defects of their judges. Thus they pass for excellent folk.

Virtue, my pet, is an abstract idea, varying in its manifestations with the surroundings. Virtue in Provence, in Constantinople, in London, and in Paris bears very different fruit, but is none the less virtue.