Between the daylight gambler and the player at night there is the same difference that lies between a careless husband and the lover swooning under his lady's window.

Women themselves are so happy, and so beautiful, when they're strong, that they naturally choose powerful men, even if that power's so enermous there's a real risk it could shatter them.

Women are as they are; they necessarily have the defects of their virtues.

However gross a man may be, the minute he expresses a strong and genuine affection, some inner secretion alters his features, animates his gestures, and colors his voice. The stupidest man will often, under the stress of passion, achieve heights of eloquence, in thought if not in language, and seem to move in some luminous sphere. Goriot's voice and gesture had at this moment the power of communication that characterizes the great actor. Are not our finer feelings the poems of the human will?

Admiration bestowed upon any one but ourselves is always tedious.

Noble passions are like vices: the more they are satisfied, the greater they grow, Mothers and gamblers are insatiable.

A sacrament by virtue of which each imparts nothing but vexations to the other.