Let us leave the cure of public evils to those quacks, the statesmen.

There are houses in certain provincial towns whose aspect inspires melancholy, akin to that called forth by sombre cloisters, dreary moorlands, or the desolation of ruins. Within these houses there is, perhaps, the silence of the cloister, the barrenness of moors, the skeleton of ruins; life and movement are so stagnant there that a stranger might think them uninhabited, were it not that he encounters suddenly the pale, cold glance of a motionless person, whose half-monastic face peers beyond the window-casing at the sound of an unaccustomed step.

What moralist can deny that well-bred and vicious people are much more agreeable than their virtuous counterparts? Having crimes to atone for, they provisionally solicit indulgence by showing leniency toward the defects of their judges. Thus they pass for excellent folk.

The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, for it was properly done.

Cruelty and fear shake hands together.

We do not wish success yet we obtain it. Always we find what we are not looking for. These words are too true not to become a proverb some day.

No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman.