One admirable trait in women is their lack of illusions about themselves. They never reason about their most blameworthy actions; their feelings carry them away. Even their dissimulation comes naturally to them, and in them crime is free of all baseness. Most of the time they simply do not know how it happened.

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

When attempted self-destruction does not cure a man of life, it cures him of voluntary death.

In all lands, sailors form a race apart. They profess a congenital contempt for landlubbers. As for the tradesman, he understands nothing of sailors nor cares a fig about them. He is content to rob them if he can.

Pity is woman's sweetest charm.

A woman in love has full intelligence of her power; the more virtuous she is, the more effective her coquetry.

From the manner in which a woman draws her thread at every stitch of her needlework, any other woman can surmise her thoughts.