One should believe in marriage as in the immortality of the soul.

No woman has ever existed who did not know perfectly well in her heart what to expect from the superiority or inferiority of a rival.

Squeeze marriage as much as you like, you will never extract anything from it but fun for bachelors and boredom for husbands.

Sometimes at the best moments a single word or a look is enough.'

The weakest being on earth can accomplish feats of strength. The frailest urchin will ring every doorbell on the street in arctic weather or hoist himself aloft to inscribe his name on a virgin monument.

All men can bear a familiar, definite misfortune better than the cruel alternations of a fate which, from one moment to another, brings excessive joy or sorrow.

It is beyond a doubt that during the sixteenth century, and the years immediately preceding and following it, poisoning had been brought to a pitch of perfection which remains unknown to modern chemistry, but which is indisputably proved by history. Italy, the cradle of modern science, was at that time, the inventor and mistress of these secrets, many of which are lost.