Virtue, my pet, is an abstract idea, varying in its manifestations with the surroundings. Virtue in Provence, in Constantinople, in London, and in Paris bears very different fruit, but is none the less virtue.

No society is complete without some victim, a creature to pity, to jeer at, to scorn or to protect.

A naked woman is less dangerous than one who spreads her skirt skillfully to cover and exhibit everything at once.

Loyalty in time of need is possibly one of the noblest of victories a courtier can win over himself.

Friendships last when each friend thinks he has a slight superiority over the other.

A husband and wife who are in the habit of occupying separate rooms are either beings apart, or they have found happiness. Either they hate or they adore each other.

To stroll is a science, it is the gastronomy of the eye. To walk is to vegetate, to stroll is to live.... To stroll is to enjoy, it is to assume a mind-set, it is to admire the sublime pictures of unhappiness, of love, of joy, of graceful or grotesque portraits; it is to plunge one's vision to the depths of a thousand existences: young, it is to desire everything; old, it is to live the life of the young, to marry their passions.