A man who stops at nothing short of the law is very clever indeed!

First love is a kind of vaccination which saves a man from catching the complaint the second time.

Suicide, moreover, was at the time in vogue in Paris: what more suitable key to the mystery of life for a skeptical society?

In a husband, there is only a man; in a married woman, there is a man, a father, a mother and a woman.

If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.

The events of human life, whether public or private, are so intimately linked to architecture that most observers can reconstruct nations or individuals in all the truth of their habits from the remains of their monuments or from their domestic relics.

How did you get back?' asked Vautrin. 'I walked,' replied Eugene. 'I wouldn't like half-pleasures, myself,' observed the tempter. 'I'd want to go there in my own carriage, have my own box, and come back in comfort. All or nothing, that's my motto.' 'And a very good one,' said Madame Vauquer.