Events are never absolute, their outcome depends entirely upon the individual. Misfortune is a stepping stone for a genius, a piscina for a Christian, a treasure for a man of parts, and an abyss for a weakling.

Nothing can afford a woman greater pleasure than to hear tender words of love. The strictest, most devout woman will listen even if she must not answer.

Tradesmen regard an author with a mixed feeling of terror, compassion and curiosity.

Despotism accomplishes great things illegally; liberty doesn't even go to the trouble of accomplishing small things legally.

To promote laughter without joining in it greatly heightens the effect.

Evasion is unworthy of us, and is always the intimate of equivocation.

The greater a man's talents, the more marked his idiosyncracies. Yet in the provinces originality is considered perilously close to lunacy.