Materialism and spirituality are two pretty racquets with which charlatans in cap and gown make the same ball fly.

Sects differ more in name than tenets.

Priests, magistrates and ladies never quite take off their gowns.

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

What is a child, monsieur, but the image of two beings, the fruit of two sentiments spontaneously blended?

A country is strong which consists of wealthy families, every member of whom is interested in defending a common treasure; it is weak when composed of scattered individuals, to whom it matters little whether they obey seven or one, a Russian or a Corsican, so long as each keeps his own plot of land, blind in their wretched egotism, to the fact that the day is coming when this too will be torn from them.

One admirable trait in women is their lack of illusions about themselves. They never reason about their most blameworthy actions; their feelings carry them away. Even their dissimulation comes naturally to them, and in them crime is free of all baseness. Most of the time they simply do not know how it happened.