We must certainly acknowledge that solitude is a fine thing; but it is a pleasure to have some one who can answer, and to whom we can say, from time to time, that solitude is a fine thing.

There are no little events with the heart. It magnifies everything; it places in the same scales the fall of an empire of fourteen years and the dropping of a woman's glove, and almost always the glove weighs more than the empire.

A careful observation of Nature will disclose pleasantries of superb irony. She has for instance placed toads close to flowers.

This surface good-nature which captivates a new acquaintance and is no bar to treachery, which knows no scruple and is never at fault for an excuse, which makes an outcry at the wound which it condones, is one of the most distinctive features of the journalist. This camaraderie (the word is a stroke of genius) corrodes the noblest minds; it eats into their pride like rust, kills the germ of great deeds, and lends a sanction to moral cowardice.

No society is complete without some victim, a creature to pity, to jeer at, to scorn or to protect.

A sacrament by virtue of which each imparts nothing but vexations to the other.

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