Misfortune makes of certain souls a vast desert through which rings the voice of God.

The happier a man, the more apt he is to tremble. In hearts exclusively tender, anxiety and jealousy are in exact proportion to happiness.

When will conventional good manners become attractive? When will ladies of fashion exhibit their shoulders a little less and their affability and wit a little more?

Are not our noblest feelings as it were the poems of our will.

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

The winter's frost must rend the burr of the nut before the fruit is seen. So adversity tempers the human heart, to discover its real worth.

For businessmen, the world is a bale of banknotes in circulation; for most young men, it is a woman; for some women, it is a man; and for others it may be a salon, a coterie, a part of town or a whole city.